Bros to the End
by rychussnik
Summary: What if Naruto's heritage was revealed? What if he was feared instead of hated? What if he was closer to Sasuke? What if he was treated more like Gaara? Not Yaoi   rating may change in later chap
1. Chapter 1

**A/N this is my first fanfic, and it was an idea i have been mulling over in my head for a couple weks.**

disclaimer: i dont own Naruto

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><p>Panic,<p>

no,

sheer terror, gripped a 14 year old boy's heart.

He was late, again, to get to class, and this time he was certain there would be Hell to pay.

As he sped through the streets, he took an appreciative glance at the village that he called home.

The Hidden Village of Konoha was one of the strongest villages of the five hidden villages in the world. The village itself held the prestige of being home to renowned clans such as the Uchiha, and Hyuga and was the home of the Yellow Flash, the boy's father.

The boy in question was Naruto Namikaze, the jinchuurichi of the Nine-Tailed Fox. But this Naruto was different because the Third Hokage made a statement concerning his heritage and his burden, and as such most people instead of hating him, respected him and revered him as a hero.

A lot of people still wanted to kill him at first, wanting to finish the work of the Fourth Hokage; but when Naruto's heritage was made known, most people did not want to question the work of the Fourth, especially concerning his own son.

Being the son of Minato Namikaze had its perks, but it also had many adverse affects. One was the obscenely large amount of fan girls that he accumulated, the loneliness of being a jinchuurichi, the enemies that he had inherited from his father. Naruto already had several attempts on his life and as a result had a squad of ANBU that kept watch over him, and would continue to do so till he reached the rank of chuunin.

Naruto arrived at the front door of the

academy, he took a glance at his watch and breathed a sigh of relief, it was only 7:57, three minutes to spare. Being late was not something that he usually cared about, after all, what were the teachers going to do to him if he was late? Today was different however, to day was the day of graduation. He opened the door to his classroom and slipped inside. As soon as he opened the door, the fan girls were in front of him requesting that he sit down next to them. He naturally declined and instead looked for his best friend Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke Uchiha, followed closely by Naruto, was the most popular guy in class. He an Naruto were tied for the highest scores in the class, and despite all of the competition between the two, they were best friends.

"Yo Sasuke, whats up?" he asked while sitting down next to him.

"Hello Naruto," Sasuke replied smoothly "what have you been upto"

" OH, you know, the usual village civilian council members trying to kiss my a-"

But before he could finish Iruka-sensei interrupted by saying, "Good morning class,"

"Good morning Iruka -sensei," the class said in unison

"Today is the day of the final examination," stated Iruka as he started to go into detail about the following test. Naruto, who had already been told all of the details by a counselor that was trying to involve him in some sort of scheme, took a look over at Sasuke, who appeared to also be paying attention.

Naruto thought back to how he and Sasuke became friends.

Flash back starts

It was several years prior to the current date and Naruto distinctly remembered that the village was in an uproar. Itachi Uchiha had slaughtered the whole Uchiha clan except for his own little brother, Sasuke.

When Naruto walked up to the academy doors he noticed that there was a bulletin announcing that classes had been canceled for today and for the next couple of days. _Even when it freaking snows, they never cancel classes, _thought Naruto.

To say he was confused was an understatement, so being a sensible child, he decided to ask the Hokage what was going on.

While walking to the Hokage tower Naruto couldn't help but notice the sorrowful looks that most of the shinobi on their faces, not only had the village lost its most respected clan it also lost one of the most promising ninja in the elemental nations.

Naruto entered the tower and climbed the stairs till he got to the floor where the Hokage's office was. Instead of just plowing into the room, Naruto asked the secretary if the hokage was busy, to which she replied, "Namikaze-san, the Hokage is not in, he is at a very urgent council meeting and will be busy for the foreseeable future. At the end of the last statement Naruto frowned, _Jiji always has time for me, so this must be really important. _

After a brief moment of contemplation Naruto then turned back to the secretary and asked, "What happened last night, everyone seems so sad?"

The secretary looked at him incredulously and exclaimed, "You don't know what happened!"

Naruto just shook his head no.

The secretaries facial emotions changed from shock to sorrow, "The Uchiha clan was slaughtered last night," she said morosely.

Now it was Naruto's turn to look her incredulously, but just as soon as he was about to say something his look changed quickly from shock to high anxiety, "What happened to Sasuke " he said quietly.

The secretary had a sorrowful smile but said that Sasuke was ok but was at the hospital recovering physically and mentally from the shock.

Naruto had one more question before he left, "who did it?"

The secretary looked at him and said, "Itachi."

Upon hearing Sasuke's older brother's name Naruto had a look of rage in his eyes but that quickly changed to a sad look, and muttered under his breath, "Sasuke must be crushed."

With a thank you to the secretary, Naruto sped out of the office and ran full tilt towards the hospital.

Naruto was never very close to Sasuke, but the evry now and then, the two boys would spar against each other, to sharpen their skills.

_He probably wants to rip Itachi to shreds._

Upon arriving at the hospital, Naruto walked up to the reception desk and asked the lady behind the desk Uchiha Sasuke was in.

The woman replied in an irritated tone, "you can't see him now."

Naruto was a little put off at being rejected (being a jinchuriki and a clan heir had made him quite used to getting what he wanted) but simply said "Arigatou, gave a slight bow and walked away.

Now a normal person would probably try to sneak in to Sasuke's hospital room or something, but Naruto decided that he would try to just reach out to Sasuke when he came back to school and help him any way that he could.

Naruto arrived back at the Namikaze around 3:30 in the after noon and decided to go outside and practice with his shuriken to kill time and get better at throwing them.

Several days went by and Sasuke was not seen at the academy, but on Thursday (the massacre occurred on a Saturday) Sasuke walked into the class room. When he entered the room, it fell deathly silent. Naruto who had his eyes closed and was daydreaming opened his eyes when the class room fell silent. Sasuke ignored the reaction of the class and instead spoke to Iruka-sensei in a cold, dead tone, "Good morning Iruka-sensei."

Iruka-sensei was a little taken back by the dead tone of the nine year old, "G-Good morning Sasuke, are you ok?"

"Hn, I'm alive aren't I?" and with that statement he walked to the back of the class room, sat down by himself and started brooding.

None of the fan girls dared to ask Sasuke if they could sit down with him, and most of the guys didn't even want to go and offer their sympathies for his loss. Naruto however saw this as a perfect opportunity to go talk to him so he walked up to Sasuke and sat down next to him.

Having never been in this situation Naruto just sat down next to Sasuke and spoke in a low even tone so the rest of the class couldn't here him, "I'll help you kill him."

Sasuke was a little shocked at the offer but he thought, _I don't need his help, have to do this on my own."_ "I don't need your help."

Naruto looked at Sasuke and said, "if I beat you in a spar during recess, I get to help you, and if you beat me I'll give you some of my fathers jutsu scrolls when we become genin."

Sasuke was only half listening to the offer until the fourth Hokage's scrolls were mentioned. The offer was to good to pass up, and Sasuke was confident in his own abilities. "Sure I'll fight you, just get ready to hand over those scrolls." and to seal the deal the two boys shook hands.

As the day progressed the two boys grew more and more excited, Naruto thought: _if I fight and beat Sasuke, I'll be able to help him and might actually gain a friend. _

Naruto was pampered his whole life, but one thing that he always lacked was a true friend. He'd had acquaintances before but most of those kids hoped to gain something by being friends with him.

Naruto thought that if there was anyone in the village that could understand him, it would be Sasuke. Both boys were viewed as the future of Konoha, as ultimate weapons, and had lost their family to tragedy.

To Naruto the allure of actually gaining a true friend, one that didn't want power or money, no price would be to high.

Sasuke one the other hand was thinking: _if- no when, I beat him, and get those scrolls I could become stronger basically over night, and kill Itachi with some epic jutsus that would blow his mind._

When recess was called the two boys looked at each other, nodded, walked up to Mizuki-sensei and asked if they would be allowed to spar.

Mizuki didn't really care what the boys did, as long as they didn't seriously hurt themselves.

The two boys hurried out to the court yard and asked Neji (who was ten years old) if he would referee. Neji complied with their request and asked everyone in the courtyard if they would clear out.

Sasuke and Naruto faced each other unblinking and waited for Neji to give the signal.

The crowd of students that had gathered, and the chuunin teachers all looked on with anticipation to see who would win the spar.

The fight will stop if one of you is injured or knocked unconscious, Hajime"

Both boys took off towards each other at impressive speeds for kids their age, but Naruto was slightly faster than Sasuke and Naruto threw a wild left handed haymaker hoping to catch Sasuke off guard with such a wild approach.

Sasuke saw the punch in coming and dodged to the right narrowly avoiding it, and followed up with a right hook that Naruto ducked under and he elbowed Sasuke in his ribs and jumped away.

Sasuke was not hurt by the strike but it managed to knock the air out of him.

Naruto, not wasting any time ran back towards Sasuke hoping to finish the fight quickly.

Sasuke recovered faster than he expected, however and Naruto was not prepared for Sasuke's intercepting fist that collided with his stomach.

Naruto cried out in pain from the punch but didn't stop the motion of punching and this time his hay maker connected with Sasuke's jaw.

Sasuke flew backward a couple feet and collided with a wall, and fell to the ground unconscious. Naruto, however also keeled over unconscious and fell to the ground due the pain of having several of his ribs broken from the punch.

Several hours later both boys woke up in the same hospital room .

Naruto was the first to speak, "so who won?"

"I don't know lets call it a draw."

"Ok, so how bout I give you some of my dad's scrolls and you let me train with you so we can both get stronger?" Naruto asked seriously

"_Why the heck did I have to fall unconscious, I had the fight in the bag and was about to finish it!" _Naruto thought bitterly.

Sasuke looked at him and thought, "_well he did manage to draw with me, I guess there's no harm in training with him and learning some of his dad's scrolls." "_Sure" he stated in a tired tone.

flash back ends

Over the next couple years the two boys had become good friends and hoped that they would be able to be on the same squad.

Naruto leaned over and whispered to Sasuke, "Some council member walked up to me and asked me if I would like to be on your team, so I naturally said yes so maybe we could be on the same team."

Sasuke looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, "Really, that's pretty awesome, hopefully we can."

"And we'll be starting the exams right now, and as we call you by name you are to come to the back room and perform the bushin jutsu," Iruka-sensei finished.

One by one their classmates were called and they looked at their closest friends for encouragement. When it was her time to take the test Hinata Hyuga looked over at Sasuke and Naruto one last time, Sasuke gave her a real smile (something he didn't do often) and Naruto gave her a thumbs up.

Both boys had become very close friends with her and she really hoped that after the exam, granted she pass, that they would all be an the same team together.

When Naruto's turn came to take the test he gave Sasuke a quick fist bump and went to take the test. On the short walk to the back room Naruto recalled the short conversation he had with the Hokage.

"_Naruto, you have probably noticed that you can't perform a simple bushin, do you know why?" Sarutobi asked. _

_No Jiji, I try and I try but, no matter what, it comes out looking like a dead piece of crap."_

_Sarutobi gave a slight chuckle at the boys response and handed him a scroll._

"_What's this?" Naruto asked while opening it. "That is a scroll containing the kage bushin jutsu that will probably work better for you, make sure you read the whole scroll and work on it tonight before bed." Sarutobi finished._

"_Thanks Jiji, Naruto said excitedly and with out further delay he sped out of the hokage's office which caused the old man to give another slight chuckle._

Naruto walked confidently into the backroom and stood before Mizuki and Iruka. "Kage bushin no jutsu," he called out. And much to his sensei's astonishment, when the smoke created from the jutsu cleared both were surprised to see the room filled with fifteen Naruto all wearing the exact same thing that he was, and giving the both of them the exact same bored look.

"Congratulations Naruto, you pass," Mizuki said in an envious tone.

Naruto gave a slight bow, walked up to the table containing the hitai-ates, and selected the one that looked the best according to him. He then fastened it around his head and proceeded out of the backroom, gave a slight nod to Sasuke.

On the outside, Naruto looked like he honestly didn't give a crap about his graduation, but on the inside he was doing freaking back flips.

" _I'm a ninja now, and I'll be the best damned one the world has ever seen!_

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><p><strong><em>AN please review, leave comments, and tell me how i can improve, thanx :)_**


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto was excited, he was a freaking ninja!

On the outside, however it looked like nothing of importance had occurred that day.

After all those years (wasted years in his opinion), he was finally a ninja. He was currently walking down the streets of konoha on his way to the academy, it had only been 3 hours after the graduation test, and after a short recess to get lunch, the new genin were required to enter the class room one last time to be assigned their jonin sensei.

As he entered the classroom, he spotted Sasuke sitting next to Hinata conversing quietly with one another. Naruto naturally decided to sit next to his friends, and on the short walks to the chair next to him, he heard tidbits of the conversations of his various classmates.

"So forehead, whose team would you, rather is on, Naruto's or Sasuke's?" Ino asked in an interrogating sort of way (you know, the way that little girls sometimes ask questions). Sakura, quite used to being called forehead by Ino responded in an offended tone, "Sasuke's of course, Narutos got nothing on Sasuke-kun, pig."

Ino was about to respond to her reply, but Sakura was on a role today, "and don't start with the crap about Naruto having the bluest eyes you've ever seen or how rich he is, or how none of the Uchiha has ever made Hokage. Sasuke-kun is more handsome and way cooler," she finished with a huff.

"Well at least I have a chance with Naruto," Ino muttered in a low tone.

"What did you say Ino-pig?"

"I said, at least I have a chance with Naruto, the platinum blonde responded in a slightly louder tone, "why would you even try to ask out Sasuke, I'm pretty sure he's finally gonna make a move on Hinata sometime soon."

"He'll come around," Sakura responded confidently.

"Right, I seem to remember when you said that and we were 11 (everyone is 14 except for team Gai)," Ino stated sarcastically.

And from there the discussion progressed to a full-blown argument.

Naruto continued walking towards the seat in the back of the class and as he walked up a couple steps, he walked past a sleeping Shikamaru, and a potato chip killing machine Choji. _Choji's okay I guess, but I would ABSOLUTLY loathe being on the some team as Shikamaru, lazy bum, _Naruto thought a disapprovingly.

As he continued past them, he also noticed Kiba trying to get Shino to laugh.

"What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?" Kiba asked.

"I don't know," Shino replied in a voice void of emotion.

"A stick," Kiba replied while laughing, but he quickly stopped when he noticed Shino wasn't laughing. _Humph, I'll definitely get him with this one, _Kiba thought confidently.

"Two atoms were walking down the street," Kiba started, "one of them suddenly stops and says, "I think I lost an electron." The other looked at him and asked if he was sure, and the first atom responded, "Yes I'm positive!" Kiba finished on the verge of tears from laughing so hard.

Again, however Shino failed to laugh, or even crack a smile.

Kiba's laughter quickly died down and he thought, _ok if he doesn't laugh at this then Shino isn't human. _

With a new sense of determination, Kiba started his final joke, "Three men stood before the gates of heaven, waiting to get in. the gatekeeper had been informed by Kami that only 33% of people would be allowed in to heaven.

So to decide which man would enter, the gatekeeper wanted to know which man died the worst death. The gatekeeper looked at the fist man and asked how he died.

The first man responded, "Well, I suspected that my wife was cheating on me for some time, so I decided to come home early to catch her in the act. I arrived home and found my wife in the tub taking a bath, so I looked all around the house but didn't find anyone. The last place I looked was on the balcony, and low and behold, I found the fag trying to climb back in! So I ran up to him and started stomping on his fingers so he would fall off. He yelled and he screamed, but he didn't fall off, so I then ran, grabbed a hammer and proceeded to pound his fingers until he fell off.

As soon as he fell, I thought the deed was done so I looked over the edge only to find that he had managed to land in a bunch of bushes! I then grabbed the fridge, it was unusually heavy, and pushed it off the balcony where it then fell and crushed the fag beneath. I was so consumed with grief over what I had just dine so I went into my bedroom and committed seppuku."

"The gate keeper nodded his head in understanding," Kiba continued, "the gatekeeper then looked at the second man who seemed to have his fingers thoroughly destroyed, "what about you?" the gatekeeper asked.

"Well I lived on a 28th floor of an apartment, and was doing some exercises on my balcony, then I lost my balance and I slipped.

Luckily, I only fell a couple floors before I managed to grab another balcony. I tried to pull myself up but some mad man ran up to me and started stomping on my fingers. I didn't fall however, but when he brought out the hammer, I quickly fell.

I landed in some bushes though, at first I couldn't believe my luck, but then I looked up from where I fell and saw an elfin' fridge falling towards me.

And that's how I ended up here," the second man finished.

The gatekeeper nodded again and looked at the final man, who seemed to have many broken bones, "what's your story?"

The final man started, "imagine your hiding, naked, in fridge…," Kiba finished with a hearty laugh.

The final joke did manage to get Shino crack a very small smirk that Kiba didn't see. Kiba just looked at him with an anime sweat and walked away.

_That last one was actually funny, but he didn't notice Shino's smirk? I would hate to be on Kiba's team, he seems really annoying…_ Naruto thought.

Naruto finally arrived next to Sasuke, who was sitting next to Hinata, but before he could get to converse with them, Iruka-sensei walked into the room and addressed the whole room.

"Congratulations those of you that passed the graduation exam…"

Naruto wasn't really paying attention, but was in stead daydreaming about who would be on his team, and a conversation that he had with a civilian council member two days ago.

Flash back starts

Naruto was walking back to the Namikaze mansion and was currently passing through the market of the village.

_Why the heck did I decide to pass through the market when everyone was on their way back to work, IDIOT! _Naruto thought.

Everyone gave him a wide berth to walk through, but that didn't really help all that much.

_At least I'm not being jostled around by the crowd._

He was steadily making progress towards the exit when he saw someone trying to beckon him.

_Might as well go, I'm not really in much of a hurry._

He walked up to a rather short man who had on the most expensive robes that could be bought in all of the Land of Fire.

Realizing that only royalty or someone extremely rich could afford the robes, Naruto also realized that he must be a council member by the way that he addressed him.

"Good evening Namikaze-sama."

_Yep, definitely a council member. _

"Good evening Councilman-san."

The council slightly bristled at not being given the same amount of respect that he gave a 14-year-old boy, but he quickly put back on his friendly façade.

"Tonight the village council will be deciding on teams, and I…"

"I want Uchiha Sasuke on my team." Naruto cut across.

_He'll probably come looking for favors when I become a chuunin and part of the council. _Naruto deduced.

The councilman looked at him and gave a slight laugh, "I thought you might say that, I'll suggest it at the meeting."

"Good day Namikaze-sama," and with that final note he gave a slight bow and melted into back into the crowd.

Naruto truly hated the way that he was treated in the village, everyone saw him as the Yondaime's son, not as Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze.

_It has its perks,_ he thought to himself.

Flash Back end

Naruto wasn't paying attention till the teams were starting to be assigned.

"Team seven will be: Sakura Haruno (who looked up in anticipation) Riku Yuuto, and Manami Kana."

Iruka directly addressed Sakura and said, "you are the replacement for a member of the team that was recently killed on a mission, they are waiting for you in room 349."

"H-Hai." she said, extremely disappointed that she wasn't on Sasuke's team, and walked down the hall towards her new team.

_I hope Ino-pig doesn't end up on Sasuke-kuns team, _she thought bitterly.

"Team eight will be: Kiba Inuzaka, Shino Aburame (Kiba gave an anime sweat at being put with Shino), and Hinata Hyuga. Your Jonin instructor will be Kurenai Yuhi, and she is waiting for you in room 350."

"Hai," the three of them answered simultaneously. Hinata was slightly disappointed, that she wasn't put on Naruto or Sasuke's team but she understood that the teams were designed to work optimally, and she doubted that Kiba would get along with the boys.

"Team nine is still active from last year," Iruka continued, "Team ten will be: Ino Yamanaka, Choji Akimichi, and Shikamaru Nara.

Choji nudged the sleeping Nara and told him they were on the same team, while Ino protested being put on the same team as the lazy bum, and fat Choji.

Sasuke was now really curious as to who would be on his team now, he was a little miffed at first since he couldn't be on the same team as Hinata but quickly realized that team eight would be an excellent tracking team.

_Naruto will probably be on my team, but what about the third member?_

Naruto was likewise thinking along the same lines, except he wasn't AS miffed about not being on Hinata's team.

Looking around, Naruto realized that everyone else except he and Sasuke had been assigned a team and had left.

Seeing, as they were the only two people in the room besides him Iruka called the two boys up to his desk to assign them their team.

The two boys walked up to his desk, and Iruka addressed them, "Your team will be team eleven, both of you will be on the same team, and your third member is an orphaned boy by the name of Sai," Iruka-sensei finished.

And as if on que, just as soon as Iruka finished a very pale looking boy entered the room, and gave the boys a weird fake smile while addressing them, "Hello Uchiha-san, and Namikaze-san."

The Sasuke just looked at him, quickly ignored him, and asked Iruka-sensei which room they were to meet their Jonin leader in.

"Room 371, good luck," Iruka finished as he led them towards the door.

The three boys exited the classroom, and even it looked like Sasuke and Naruto were ignoring the pale boy, they were each shooting him appraising glances.

_I wonder what sort of jutsus he knows._

_I wonder how good he is with that ninja-to._

_What the heck is up with that dang smile!_

Iruka watched them leave, and walk down the hallway classroom, _They are not even talking to their new teammate, this could cause trouble. _

The boys arrived at the room, and quickly went inside.

They waited, and they waited, and they waited some more.

By the time the second hour had gone by, Sai had started drawing, and Sasuke and Naruto were playing Unit 13 on their Playstation Vitas.

After another hour went by, Naruto and Sasuke were still ignoring Sai, when a tall white haired man walked in.

Naruto immediately recognized him and asked, "you're gonna be our Jonin teacher?"

When Kakashi Hatake nodded, Naruto exclaimed, "sweet!

"Meet up on the roof in ten minutes," Kakashi said as he shushined away.

"How do you know him?" Sasuke asked Naruto as they climbed the stairs to the roof.

"He was on my dad's Genin team back in the third ninja war."

"Really, is he any good?"

"Heck ya!" Naruto responded, "he graduated from the academy when he was like, 6, and has been an Anbu captain for the past couple of years."

"Wow, this is gonna be awesome!" Sasuke said excitedly.

_This guy must be pretty powerful; he'll probably have loads of stuff to teach me, and Naruto._

When they arrived at the roof, the three boys took a seat on the steps facing the scarecrow, who was leaning up on the railings.

"Alright, what's your likes and dislikes?" Kakashi asked in a bored tone while he was reading his orange book.

"Hatake-san do you mind doing it first so we could see how its done?" asked Sai in a polite voice. All three boys looked at Kakashi in anticipation.

"Fine, my name is Kakashi Hatake, I don't really have a lot of likes, I have a lot of dislikes, and my dream is none of your business.

_We only learned his name, _all three boys thought at the same time.

"How 'bout you, mister fake smile, he Kakashi said while gesturing towards Sai, while never looking up from his book.

"My name is Sai, I enjoy painting, I don't have a dream or many dislikes."

_Wow, he's way to apathetic to be a normal teen aged boy, I'll have to find out who this kid is, _thought Kakashi.

"Ok, your turn 'Namikaze-sama'," Kakashi said in a sarcastic tone, he hadn't even looked up from his book.

Naruto slightly scoffed at Kakashi's sarcasm, but continued nonetheless, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze, I like the Konoha, the Old man, I guess I like Sasuke my…"

"I didn't know you cared," Sasuke remarked

"Shut up you, spaz, my dislikes are fan girls, and people who would threaten my home, my dream is to become Hokage just like my Dad." Naruto finished.

Kakashi wasn't really paying attention until Naruto said he wanted to be Hokage; he looked up from his book and noticed the determined look in boy's eyes.

_Its only natural that he would want to be Hokage, _Kakashi thought.

"Your turn," Kakashi said while pointing at Sasuke, as he returned to reading his book.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha, I don't have many likes except for Naruto and Hinata, I have many dislikes that include fan girls, and scheming councilors. My dream is restore my clan, both in its members and in its honor, and to kill my older brother."

"Well good to get to know you guys, we'll be having another test tomorrow so meet at the training field at 7 A.M. and with that final note Kakashi shushined away.

"Good bye, Naruto-san Sasuke-san," Sai said as he walked away.

Both boys ignored him however and just jumped off of the roof of the building. When they landed on the ground in the middle of the street, Sasuke looked at Naruto and said, "I'm gonna head home and work on some jutsus then go to sleep."

"Alright, see you tomorrow, oh, and I wouldn't come to the field before 9:00, I asked the old man if he was chronically late and he said yes."

Sasuke gave him a nod and walked down a dark street on the way to the Uchiha compound.

_I should get some ramen to celebrate my graduation!_

With his mind made up, Naruto sped through the streets towards Ichirachu ramen.

Arriving at the stand Naruto quickly entered and took his seat.

"I'll have four vegetable ramens!" the boy said excitedly, he was starved.

"Hey Naruto, did you pass the graduation?" asked Teuchi while preparing his ramen.

"Hell yeah I did," and he showed the chief his new shiny headband as proof.

"Oh hi Naruto," Ayame said as she entered the ramen stand, just returning from doing a few errands.

"Hi Ayame," Naruto started, "I passed my exam, look"

"Sweet," she said while looking at his new headband,

when she was younger she had wanted to be a ninja, but her father had asked her not to be one after her mother died. Instead of returning to work in the kitchen, Ayame just sat down next to Naruto and started conversing with him.

"So who's on your team?" she asked starting the conversation.

"Its me, Sasuke, and this other weird kid who has the fakest smile you've ever seen."

Ayame laughed at Naruto's description of his other teammate but continued on, "what's his name?"

"His name was Sai, I think, I wasn't really paying attention, Naruto said sheepishly.

"Boys," muttered Ayame while she rolled her eyes, "how could you not pay attention to your new team mate?"

"Hey I was still pissed that Hinata couldn't be on me and Sasuke's team, and trust me, after you see this guy you'll think he's the weirdest guy you've ever seen," Naruto finished in a defensive tone.

"That's no excuse, you guys will probably end up saving each others lives."

"Ya, so? That doesn't mean we have to be friends."

"It would help," Ayame responded.

"I don't think it would, I'll be nice to him but that's about it," Naruto finished as his ramen was placed in front of him.

"Thanks old man," and on that final note Naruto dove into his Ramen.

_Boys, there so unreasonable,_ thought Ayame. Truth be told, Ayame had developed a little crush on the 14 year old, it all started back when he fist entered the ramen stand 5 years ago.

Flash back starts

It was a particularly slow day at the ramen stand, the same customers, the same orders, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon and Ayame (then ten years old) wished she could go outside to play with the other kids.

A couple minutes later, a dressed in a black leather coat, black jonin pants, and a shock of blonde hair walked in.

She knew who he was, everyone in the village did.

Naruto Namikaze had been milling about the village with nothing to do, and no one to play with.

He had a dejected look about him and he seemed to be bored out of his mind. He quietly took his seat, and immediately several of the people in the stand quickly paid for their meals and left.

Ayame didn't know what his burden was, but she was really curious as to why the other people left, they hadn't even finished their ramen yet.

"Hello and welcome to Ichiraku'," the young girl started, "what can I get for you?"

"I'll have three miso ramens, please."

_Three! He must really be hungry!_

"Coming right up!" she said while she ran to the back to get his order.

When she brought out his meal, he thanked her in a small quiet voice, and much to her astonishment, quickly polished off his meal.

He paid for the meal and left a generous tip, _that was really good stuff,_ but before he could leave, the girl grabbed his arm and asked him words that he wanted to her for a long time.

"Wanna go to the park and play, I get off work pretty soon and you seem pretty lonely."

"Sure," he said in a non-caring tone.

On the outside it seemed like nothing happened, but on the inside he was jumping for joy, _she wants to play with me! Someone actually wants to play with me!_

Teuchi had watched the whole scene play out, and he couldn't have been more proud of his little girl.

Flash back ends

After that day, the two had been instant friends. At first Naruto was kinda shy because he never had a friend before, but slowly and surely, Ayame managed to see a side of him that VERY few people got to see.

On the outside he tried to remain stoic, and calm, but on the inside he was a very lonely kid that desperately wanted attention. Most kids his age avoided him, and the ones that didn't only wanted to gain from being his friend, but Ayame was different, and aside from Sasuke and Hinata, she was his only friend.

After conversing for about an hour, and polishing off 10 bowls of ramen later, Naruto left the Ramen stand and headed towards home to get some rest for the test the next day.

_I'll be ready, _

_Me and Sasuke will pass this test with flying colors!_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N pairings are still undecided except for a few, they will become more apparent in the coming chapters**

disclaimer: i don't own Naruto or PlayStation Vita (seriously if you haven't checked it out yet it looks awesome)

my PSN name is **rychussnik** plesed friend me!

* * *

><p>8:00am,<p>

that was when Naruto woke up. Sure his sensei said 7:00, but more than likely, he wouldn't be there till at least 10:00, so he had some time to kill.

He climbed out of bed and remembered that Kakashi-sensei said not to eat any breakfast, so he just went and to take a shower to get ready for the day.

After his shower, Naruto entered the master bed room in the Namikaze Manor, the room was huge, it had a king size bed, a 75 inch tv, and a huge window that over looked the village.

The walls were painted in a in a light cream color, and on two walls there were shelves filled with books. Naruto had only read a couple of the books, but with his shadow clones he would be able to read all of them in no time.

He walked over to his walk-in closet, and opened up the doors. He took seven steps in, and found that caught his fancy, it was a black leather jacket with orange patches on cetain parts of the coat (basically his Shippuden outfit with the colors reversed.) Naruto selected athe matching paints, and appraised himself in the mirror, _Dang, I look good!_

He selected a kunai pouch and exited his bedroom, when he arrived in his kitchen he decided to grab some 3 Akimichi ration bars, _Sasuke and Sai probably haven't eaten breakfast, and_ _it doesn't hurt to be prepared. _

It was 9:00 by the time he made it to training ground 7, and he was not surprised to see Sai sitting down drawing. Remembering what Ayame told him last night, Naruto decided to try to be nice to the pale faced boy.

"Yo," Naruto said in a greeting.

"Hello Naruto-san."

"Whatcha drawing?"

"Nothing really," Sai said as he went on painting.

Naruto waited for Sai to say something else, but the boy continued to just ignore him and kept on drawing.

After a couple minutes of neither of them talking, Naruto decided to try and find out about the kid, and the jutsu he knew.

"So where are you from?"

Sai looked up at him with his fake smile and said, "I'm from Konoha."

Naruto scoffed at Sai's blunt reply, but continued on none the less; "What sort of jutsus do you know?"

"I can paint animals, and cause them to be animated for a short time," and to prove his point, Sai painted a small cat that ran up to Naruto, and started to purr when he pet it.

"Dang, that's cool, what sort of animals can you draw?"

"All sorts, the more ferocious the animal in real life, the more dangerous it is when drawn. My most powerful animal is the lion, but the one I find most useful is the hawk. I can actually draw the hawk and ride on it for about 10 minutes, my chakra reserves aren't that high yet so that is how long I can keep it together. I also know basic medical jutsu "

_That's some cool jutsu, he'll probably be a long ranged fighter, _thought Naruto.

Just after Sai finished speaking, Sasuke walked up and greeted the two boys. It was know 9:30.

"Yo Sasuke," Naruto started, "you want to play some more Unit 13?"

"Of course," Sasuke replied.

Both boys pulled out a scroll and channeled a little bit of chakra into them, and in a puff of smoke, sitting on top of the scrolls were their Playstaion Vitas.

45 minutes later Kakshi entered the training ground, instead of yelling at him and saying he was late Sasuke just looked at him and asked, "If you know your going to be three hours late, why don't you schedule the meetings three hours later?"

_I never thought of that,_ Kakashi mused, "That's a good idea, that way everyone can do what they want instead of wait here forever," Naruto said.

"Ok that's what we'll do from now on," Kakashi started, "now the final exam that you have to do is get these two bells (he held up the two bells while still reading his book) from me, the person that doesn't get the bell will be sent back to the academy, and wont be allowed to eat lunch."

All three of the boys were taken back by Kakashi's statement, Naruto and Sauske looked at each other, and both knew what the other was the thinking.

_The council would never let us go back to the academy._

Naruto looked at Sai and thought, _he could actually be very helpful to me and Sasuke, so if we get the bells we should give one to him._

Remember, if you don't come at me with the intention to kill, you will not get the bells; you have one hour," Kakashi concluded.

"Hajime!"

The three boys looked at each other, and jumped into the trees to formulate a plan.

When they were in the trees, Naruto spoke to Sai and Sasuke in a low voice, "Did you guys eat breakfast?" when they shook their head no Naruto tossed them something that looked like a candy bar.

"What's this?" Sasuke hissed out in a low voice.

"Its an Akimichi ration bar, it's the equivalent of eating a full meal, and it gives you a chakra boost."

Sasuke and Sai looked at Naruto, quickly thanked him, and devoured the bar, while Naruto ate his.

Naruto looked at them and they started to formulate a plan.

Back in the clearing Kakashi was reading his book, while covertly looking for the boys and taking in the scenery around him: he was currently in a rather large clearing with a small pond about 50 feet behind him, and one hundred feet in front of him there was a small forest than formed a sort of horseshoe shape around Kakashi.

_I've already given them the advantage of good cover, lets see what they cook up,_ Kakashi thought.

Nothing happened for the first five minutes, Kakashi was actually surprised, most genin teams would have rushed right in, and have there butts handed to them, _these kids actually think_.

Then he heard it,

the unique whistle that only kunai make, he dodged to the right of it, but he also heard the tell-tale sizzle that an explosive note makes.

Kakashi barely had time to substitute himself with a log before the note went off.

_Looks like they're coming at me with the intent to kill._

He was still in the clearing, and a not in a very good strategic position, he was vulnerable to attacks at his sides, and he wasn't sure if any of them knew water jutsu.

Just then, the three boys burst from the trees flinging shuriken with deadly precision as they fell towards the ground. Kakashi was forced to dodge and even block several kunai, but he didn't get every single one.

One managed to knick his beloved book.

Before he could lament the damage to his book, Sasuke, several of Naruto's clones, and few of Sai's ink beast were upon him. Kakashi still had his book open as he dodged the punches, kicks, and even bites that were sent his way.

Seeing as he wasn't getting anywhere, Sasuke jumped back to where Naruto and Sai were, nodded to Naruto and jumped further back into the trees.

Just as soon as Kakashi dispelled the last clone, Naruto sent 50 more his way.

_This kids chakra is limitless!_ Kakshi thought while he was dispelling Naruto's clones.

When the last clone was dispelled, Sai nodded at Naruto, and started drawing a falcon. To keep Kakashi preoccupied, Naruto sent some more clones his way.

After Sai finished with his falcon, Naruto tossed some of his explosive kunai as Sai flew into the air.

After Sai took off, Naruto jumped at Kakashi with a kunai.

Naruto lunged at Kakashi in a stabbing movement, but Kakashi sidestepped him knocking the blonde off balance, and tumbling towards the ground. Kakashi had already turned his attention to the pale faced boy on the falcon, while Naruto was still falling to the ground, but he wasn't expecting Naruto to shift his body, and fling a kunai at his sensei's back.

Kakashi barely managed to dodge the kunai thrown at his back, and while he was in the motion of dodging the kunai, Sai threw two explosive kunai at Kakashi. The scarecrow still had his Icha Icha book open, and he jumped back from the kunai that impacted the ground in front of him, he didn't even take time to check and make sure there were no explosives on the kunai, he was about to shift his attention to Naruto but years of combat training kicked in, and on a reflex he jumped back from the kunai just as they exploded.

_Crap, that was too close, I need to take these boys seriously._

In all honesty, as soon as Kakashi saw the three teens working together, he was ready to pass them, but he was curious to know just how skilled each boy was, so he decided to see what they could do.

Sai sent ink beast at Kakashi, to cover Naruto as he jumped back into the trees. Kakashi still had his book out, but it had been slightly chared from the explosive notes, he had not been an ANBU captain for nothing though, and he defeated to ink beast with ease.

Meanwhile in the trees, Naruto had joined up with Sasuke

both boys looked at each other and started gathering chakra.

Back in the clearing, Sai was harassing Kakashi by throwing skuriken, explosive kunai, and spawning ink beast. Kakashi was growing rather tired from having to use a lot of his chakra to continually substitute himself, and throwing jusus to try and bring down Sai without seriously hurting him.

The boys plan couldn't have gone better, unknown to them, Kakashi was a close ranged fighter, and having to fight Sai put him at a large disadvantage.

_This boy is making me use a lot of chakra, I need to finish this quickly,_ thought Kakashi.

Back in the trees, Naruto and Sasuke had amassed a large amount of chakra, and they watched and waited till Kakashi defeated Sai.

After five minutes, Sai was starting to run low on chakra. It wasn't that he had tiny reserves, it was just that the ink beast sapped him of chakra rather quickly.

Sai dispelled his bird, and fell towards the ground, he landed on his feet however, and drew a few final ink beast before rushing at Kakashi with his ninja-to.

Kakashi was surprised by the boys actions but he recovered quickly, and drew a kunai to counter his sword. Sai's ink beast arrived at Kakashi first, but they were quickly dispelled. When Sai arrived at Kakashi, he started out his attack by going for the scarecrwos feet, kakashi jumped over his attack and in retaliation, brought a downward strike at the boys head.

Sai blocked Kakashi's attack, and pushed Kakashi back with surprising force.

_I should probably fight harder, but I they can't beat me, _Kakashi thought smugly.

Sai was relentless in his attack, and he was back on Kakashi in an instant,

He started with a strong slash from the right side of Kakashi's chest to the left side. Kakashi parried his attack, and sent several strikes with his kunai that Sai evaded, blocked, and countered.

_What he doesn't have in chakra, he makes up for it in endurance and effort, _Kakashi deduced.

Sai jumped back from a combo that Kakashi parried, and he threw his remaining explosive note a Kakashi, at point blank range. Kakashi wasn't expecting this gutsy move but he dodged the kunai, and it exploded harmlessly fifty yards behind him.

When the cyclops looked back to where Sai had stood he discovered the boy had already jumped back into the trees.

_Guerilla warfare? No that takes to much time, what are they planning?_

After Sai had jumped back into the trees, Sasuke and Naruto jumped out of the trees and into the clearing. The small pond was behind Kakashi.

Both boys started to simultaneously do hand signs, Kakashi's battle instincts kicked in, but he ignored them, Sasuke finished first and yelled, "Katon: fire stream jutsu!" A stream of fire about a foot wide burst from Sasuke's mouth and headed towards Kakashi.

_That's it? I thought he would try something a little more powerful,_ mused Kakashi.

But before the jutsu could reach him, Naruto finished his hand signs and called out, "Futon: Wind stream jutsu."

The fire jutsu and the wind jutsus were not particularly powerful by themselves, but when the wind jutsu was added to the fire Jutsu, the power as increased 10-fold.

The inferno created from the collaboration jutsu was so intense that it could clearly be seen from the Hokage's office.

Seeing the raw power of the jutsu before him, Kakashi quickly sped through some hand signs for a water jutsu, and yelled out "Suiton: water wall jutsu!"

Kakashi used the small pond in the clearing to supply his water jutsu, and his wall of water met the boys pillar of fire head on. When the two jutsus clashed it created an a lot of steam. The two boys poured more, and more chakra into jutsu, and in retaliation, Kakashi had to pour in some more chakra into his jutsu to hold it back.

_Crap! I'm running out of _water, _and chakra!_ thought Kakashi.

The two boys continued to pour chakra into the justu, but Sasuke was running low on chakra. They kept up the jutsu for as long as possible, but Sasuke had to stop before he ran out of chakra. Sasuke did have a rather large chakra reserve for his age, but his control was not the best, so when he started his jutsu he wasted about a third of his chakra supply. Naruto had the same problem, but his tenant helped him out in that department.

Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief when the boys finished their jutsu, but his relief was short lived when Naruto yelled out, Futon: repeating wind bullet jutsu!

Several strong blasts of air erupted from Naruto's mouth, and flew towards Kakashi at an alarming speed.

Their sensei dodged all of the blasts without really giving it much effort, except the last one. The last air blasts collided with Kakashi's right foot, and the effect was instantaneous. The scarecrow felt the majority of the bones in his foot get shattered, and he was blown back from the blast.

As soon as Kakashi landed on his butt, Sasuke threw several shuriken at the scarecrow. Kakashi was hard pressed to dodge all the kunai, but he managed. When he looked up, he noticed that all three of the boys were in the clearing about 75 yards from him.

Naruto had only 1 explosive note left, Sai had recovered a little bit of his chakra back, and Sasuke was almost completely drained of chakra, but he remained standing upright. Naruto tossed Sasuke his last explosive kunai, and Sasuke took out one shuriken and tossed it at Kakashi.

_Why would he only toss one shuriken? He can't know the shadow shuriken jutsu!_ Kakashi thought with trepidation, he doubted that if it was the shadow shuriken jutsu, he would be able to dodge all of them.

_I could've ended this fight earlier, but no, I had to get cocky and under-estimate the heirs of the Uchiha and Namikaze clans, and some kid I've never even seen around the village! _Kakashi thought while being disgusted with himself,_ ninja get killed every freaking day because they underestimate their opponent, and I fell right into that trap._

Unfortunately for Kakashi, Sasuke did know the shadow shuriken jutsu, but Kakashi did his best to dodge all of them,

but he failed.

Two of the shuriken punctured his chest and one punctured his left thigh. _Oh crap, this hurts! _thought Kakashi while grimacing in pain.

Kakashi was about to call the spar before he got seriously hurt, but he saw Sasuke throw his final explosive kunai,

The kunai impacted with a tree 5 feet behind where Kakashi sat, but it didn't explode.

At first Kakashi couldn't believe his luck, but when he looked back at the three boys Naruto spoke, "give us the bells and let all of us pass, if you don't Sasuke will detonate the kunai, and at that range you'll be lucky to survive."

Before Kakashi could respond to their demands (he honestly didn't think that they would kill him) Sasuke spoke up, "me and Naruto don't have any time to waste by going back to the academy, and Sai has proven himself a good teammate so hurry up before I detonate it."

"OK." Kakashi said in a tied voice, and he tossed them the bells, and Sai caught them.

"Help me get to the hospital, I've lost a lot of blood, and my right foot is shattered." and true to their sensei's word, his jonin flak jacket was soaked in blood, and the way he wouldn't put any weight on his right foot meant in probably was broken. Naruto and Sasuke, went to help take Kakashi to the hospital, and Sai was about to help them, but Kakashi told him to go report to the Hokage, and tell him what happened.

_I'll never hear the end of this, _Kakashi thought, in a depressed tone.

When Sasuke and Naruto had hoisted up Kakashi and they were well on their way to the hospital Kakashi asked a question he had been meaning to ask for a couple minutes, "would you have really detonated the kunai?"

Sasuke just looked at him and said in a nonchalant voice, "If you didn't give us the bells."

Kakashi visibly paled, and thanked Kami that this wasn't a real fight or he would probably be dead.

When Sai arrived at the Hokage tower, he quickly climbed the stairs and asked the receptionist if the Hokage was busy and if he could see him. The receptionist said yes but added, "yes Sarutobi-sama is in, but some foreign dignitaries have an appiontment in 15 minutes, so make your visit quick.

Sai walked up to the door and knocked.

"Come in."

He entered the room and bowed to the Hokage.

"Ah, Hello Sai, how is your new team, I trust Kakashi wasn't to hard on you in the bell test?"

"Actually Hokage-sama, Sai started in his polite voice and fake smile, "team eleven managed to beat Kakashi, and take the bells away from him, and he was admitted to the hospital 10 minutes ago."

Hiruzen's pipe almost fell from his mouth at the revelation but in a blink of an eye he regained his composure and asked, "how badly hurt is he?"

Hiruzen was now going to dread having to tell the council about this development for one of two reasons, one was that they would probably demand that Naruto and Sasuke be given a new sensei, or they would start to grow weary of Naruto.

Sai answered the previously asked question, "Kakashi-sensei has a broken right foot, and several punctures from kunai, and shuriken."

_The lacerations from the shuriken aren't that bad, but a broken foot, that's a really bad injury for a ninja to have, _Sarutobi pondered.

"Thank you for the report Sai, now if you'll excuse me some very important people will be here shortly."

"Hai, thank you for seeing me Hokage-sama," Sai said with a bow and he exited the building.

…

…

…

After Naruto had checked Kakashi into the hospital, he left, and proceeded to head towards Ichiraku for a late lunch.

It was 2:30 when he arrived at the beloved ramen stand, and when he entered the stand he was surprised to see Sakura and her team in there.

He sat down a few seats from where team seven sat, hoped they didn't notice him, and waited for Ayame to take his order.

"Hello Naruto"

Naruto looked over to his right, and nearly rolled his eyes when he realized that it was Sakura talking to him. _I just wanted to eat some ramen, why does she have to be here?_

Naruto honestly didn't have a problem with Sakura, but the fact she was one of the biggest fan girls in his class really annoyed him, that and the fact she took more time to make sure she looked 'presentable', than preparing to be a decent shinobi.

"Hello Sakura," Naruto said as he took out his beloved Playstation Vita.

"Sakura, you know Namikaze-san?" one of her teammates asked.

"Yah, Riku, he was in my homeroom class."

"Wow," the girl named Riku exclaimed in a low voice.

Naruto looked up from his game, and looked at Sakura's teammates, the one named Riku Yuuto had black hair and a heart shaped face, and she wore tight black from fitting shinobi pants, and a long sleeved violet shirt that was low cut and exposed a lot of skin, and a ninja-to strapped to her back, and her hitai-ate tied at the base of her neck, purposely drawning attention to her "assets."

_She's pretty hot, but probably a fan girl._

Riku looked at Naruto, but she blushed and looked away when she noticed Naruto looking at her.

_Defiantly a fan girl._

The two girls started talking about Naruto like he wasn't even there, but there third teammate switched seats, and sat down next to Naruto.

"Hello, Naruto, my name is Manami Kana, the boy said as he extended his hand for a hand shake.

Naruto shook his hand and he noticed the boys firm grip, he looked at the boy and noticed his features: Manami was a tall kid for his age, he had messy brown hair, and a narrow face. He also had a small scar from the right side of his nose down to his chin. He wore standard shinobi attire and had his hitai-ate tied around his forehead.

Naruto put down his Playstation Vita, and started a conversation with the boy.

"So where are you from?"

"Born and raised in Konoha," Manami said with pride clearly evident in his voice.

Naruto nodded at his staement and was about to say something to Manami, but the boy cut him off, "I'm an orphan like you, my mother died defending the village the night the Kyuubi attacked," Kana said, the pride still evident on his voice. the tone of his voice changed though when he started talking again, "My father was on a mission at the time, and when he came back to the viialge and found the distruction and was told of the death of my mother, he was so consumed with grief that he actually tried to kill you."

To say Naruto loathed situations like this was a huge understatement, how are you supposed to respond to someone when the tell you, you are indirectly responsible for the deaths of a loved one?

"Oh," was all he could lamely reply. Naruto was always a freaking ice cube, he rarely let his emotions show, let alone get the better of him, he always had a comeback to every statement,

except for when the Kyuubi was involved.

"Don't worry about it though, I don't blame you for their deaths, I actually would like to thank you for keeping the Kyuubi at bay for the past 14 years," Manami stated as he started to get up from his seat, "Whenever your free come by training ground 32 so we can spar." The boy then nudged his teammates, and the girls looked at Naruto, and said goodbye, Naruto also noted that Riku batted her eye lashes furiously at him when she said her goodbye.

_Fan girls…_

Naruto was about to go back to playing his video game when the voice of Ayame was heard from behind the counter, "What did I tell you about playing that THING in here!"

"I'm sorry, last time I checked it was a free village," Naruto responded smartly while not even looking up from his game. This only served to annoy Ayame further, but she knew how to win this argument, they had it at least once a week. "Its not a free restaurant though, and if you don't put it away, no more ramen," she finished in a firm voice.

Naruto was a smart boy, he knew when to cut his losses, and when he was beaten,

this was a time when he was beaten, he put away his Vita and looked at Ayame with a scowl. "You happy know?"

"Yes, what do you want to eat?" Ayame replied in a mock smug voice.

"I'll have two vegetable, and three pork ramens to start off," Naruto grumbled. "Comin' right up."

Naruto started to think about his relationship to Ayame, _she's sorta like my older sister, best friend, and girlfriend, all-in-one, man that's a weird relationship._

When the ramen chef brought out his ramen, she sat down next to him and started to converse with Naruto.

"What have you been up to today?"

Naruto currently had his mouth full of ramen, so he had to chew and swallow before he could answer the question, "I beat the crap out of my sensei."

"You WHAT!"

"Jeeze, stop yelling, we had a full contact test, and our sensei underestimated us, he was lucky it wasn't a real fight or he would've been killed," Naruto said in a non-caring tone.

"How badly did you hurt him?"

"We bruised several of his ribs, shattered his right foot, and he lost a couple pints of blood from puncture wounds to his chest and legs."

"Wow, you didn't have to go so hard on him," Ayame said in a disapproving tone.

"He would've beaten the crap out of us, not let us have lunch, and he would've sent us back to the academy."

As soon as Naruto mentioned lunch and the academy, she immediately understood the beat down that the boys gave there sensei.

_Never get in the way of a hungry teenaged boy, and never threaten them with doing more school_, Ayame mused.

The two continued their conversation for about an hour, and in tht time Naruto consumed over 15 bowls of ramen. It was 4:00 when Naruto finally left the ramen stand, he was walking down the street towards the Namikaze mansion. He remembered a conversation he had with the Hokage one month before his graduation.

FLASH BACK

Naruto was on his way towards the hokage tower, he had been summoned to see the Hokage while he was eating lunch in his home.

When he arrived at the office, he walked right into the office without knocking. He noticed that the old man was trying to hide an orange book, and he had a noticeable blush on his face.

"Hello Naruto," Sarutobi said while gaining his composure.

"Hi Sarutobi-sama." Naruto, had stopped calling the man jiji a couple years ago much to Sarutobi's disappointment.

"Naruto, you are no doubt aware of the jutsu that made your father famous?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well your father's sensei was studying your fathers scroll of the Hirashin, and he found out that your father made a special seal, and placed it on himself."

"What sort of seal?" Naruto asked, his interest now peaked.

"Well, your father was a seal master, the seal was so complex that not even your fathers sensei had it all figured out, basically the seal enabled the hirashin to be a hereditary jutsu, that all his descendants could use."

Naruto visibly paled at this revelation, he had read up on several of the laws in Konoha especially the clan laws, there was no question that the council would force him to go through the CRA.

_Over my dead body, I'm not sleeping with a bunch of power hungry bimbos just because the council orders me to._

Naruto kept his face void of emotion, and asked a question that he already knew the answer to.

"What now?"

"No doubt the council will try to put you through the CRA, and if you don't have three wives by the time you turn eighteen the council will choose wives for you," the old man concluded morosely.

Naruto's poker face didn't fail, but he had one more question to ask, "when will I be able to do the hirashin?"

"The scroll said when you experience true happiness, you will unlock the ability to do the jutsu."

"OK," and with that final note Naruto left the Hokage's office and the tower to ponder these new developments.

FLAH BACK END

He arrived back at his house, and had only one thing on his mind, _I need to become a chuunin._

…

…

…

Meanwhile, in a well hidden base under Konoha, a heavily bandaged man who used a cane to get around was receiving a report from one of his ninja.

"Danzo-sama, with my help, and the help of the Uchiha, Namikaze Naruto was able to defeat Kakashi Hatake in a spar," Sai said with his mock smile still up.

"The older man's unbandged eye visibly widened, "What would you rank his abilities at?"

"I am very confident that he and Uchiha Sasuke could pass the Chuunin exams with ease, they are low chuunin at least."

"Good work Sai, I want regular reports on Namikaze's progress and the progress of the Uchiha."

"Hai," Sai said, as he rose from being on one knee in front of Danzo, and he gave him a bow and walked away.

_I'll have to find out how close the Uchiha is to the Namikaze, and Naruto will start training with the Kyuubi soon, _Danzo thought, he had a council meating to go to before retiring for the day.

At the Hokage tower, Hiruzen was about to enter the council room, he could already hear the arguments from the other side of the door,_ we need to seal the sound off from these doors, well here goes nothing._

And the Hokage entered the council room.

When Sarutobi entered the room, the civilian council immediately quieted down, and all of the clan heads nodded in acknowledgment.

"Good evening, lets get down to business," Sarutobi said as he took his seat that faced every one in the council. He took a look at all of the members of the council, the clan heads were: Hiashi Hyuuga, Tsume Inuzaka, Inoichi Yamanaka, Choja Akimichi, and Shikaku Nara, next to the Nara clan head, there were two empty seats, one for the Uchiha, and the other for the Namikaze.

Sarutobi then shifted his glance over to the civilian side of the council: Sayuka Haruno (Sakura's mother) Misaki Miyu, Naoto Tsubasa, Takahiro Takumi, and Ren Souta.

The civilian council were a constant headache for the old man, as their sometimes ludicrous ideas were a constant bother. The people he had to watch out for though were, Takahiro Takumi, and Misaki Miyu. Both members were suspected of rigging elections, and having ties to the Yakuza.

Takahiro was an impressive man for a civilain, he came from a family of wealth, and he owned several of the grocery and clothing stores in Konoha, Misaki Miyu was a middle-aged woman, who had a sharp political mind and she had various connections to people in the Fire country Capital, it was rumored that she had several of her political rivals killed by the Yakuza, but no evidence was ever found.

Sarutobi was sure of one thing though, the civilian council was corrupt, the same people kept getting elected despite the poor job that they did, and their personal agenda was more important to than the needs of the village.

"Hokage-sama, is it true that Naruto Namikaze defeated Kakashi Hatake in the belll test?" Takahiro asked.

_I wonder why he cares,_ mused Hiruzen, "With the help of his teammates, they were able to defeat Hatake, who made the mistake of under estimating his opponent." the Hokage's answer appeased the shinobi side of the council, but not the civilian side of the council.

"He's becoming to strong, we should scale back on his training," Misaki Miyu said, and her comment gained a few nods from other members of the civilain government.

"Absolutely not, Naruto has diverted several conflicts from the Konoha, just by being in the village, I cannot hinder the development of a shinobi who has the potential great potential," Sarutobi said firmly, "besides, what type of jincuuriki would he be if he didn't learn to control his tenant, no we will not hinder his training, our number one priority needs to be keeping him loyal to Konoha."

At Sarutobi's last statement every one in the council room nodded in agreement, it was at this time that the other three members of the council showed up: Danzo Shimura, the old scheming war hawk, Homura Mitokado, and Koharu Utatane, the old members of Team Tobirame.

The old members entered the room, (Koharu and Homura gave a slight bow)

And they took there respective seats.

"Have we missed anything important?" Homura asked a he became comfortable in his seat.

"Not at all, the civilian council was suggesting holding back on Namikaze Naruto's training," Sarutobi said.

All three of the elderly people raised their eye brows in surprise (Danzo had figured they would try to do something like that) and they sent a small amount of killer intent at the civial side.

"Is there anything else of importance?" Sarutobi asked. This time it was Hiashi who spoke up, "Who will be Namikaze's sensei while Hatake is recovering?"

Sarutobi responded, "I think that they will be able to do some D-rank missions while he recovers, and when he does they can start going on a few C-rank"

This answer appeased Hiashi, and the rest of the council.

The civilian side of the council decided ti was time to lay out the 'problems' that plagued the civilians in Konoha.

To some degree, iruzen tuned out their squabbles, and he then thought abou Naruto.

_I wonder what everyone will do when he starts training with the Kyuubi,_ Sarutobi thought with trepidation.

_Naruto, I will do my best to protect you from the corruption of Konoha, perhaps one day y__ou can do something about it._

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><p><strong><em>longest chapter so far, hope you enjoyed the spar at the begininng. <em>**

**_PLEASE REVIEW! I have a bag stuffed to the brim with cookies waiting to br given away to people that review lol_**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N heres chapter 4 **

i don't own Naruto

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><p>One would think that Kakashi would be upset with his situation, it was the exact opposite.<p>

After he had been reprimanded by the Hokage, his team had started doing the customary D-ranked missions. Because of his crutches, he couldn't help them with their missions, so he spent the majority of his days reading his beloved orange book. It had been a week since the first spar.

The doctors said that he would be back on his feet in two months, so he was gonna soak it up while he had the time. Do to the severity of his broken right foot, the medical nins couldn't heal it fully, but with regular visits to the hospital the injury would heal in a fraction of the time.

When his team was not on missions he would supervise their training. Kakashi found out very quickly that each boy had learned their element, and he also found out that Naruto, and Sasuke had terrible chakra control.

So he started them on the tree climbing exercise. It had taken the boys several days to get to the top of the tree, but Sai had managed to do it on the second day. Kakashi thought about Sai with a frown, _I've worked with this kid for a week and I have yet to find anything out about the boy._

Sai was a complete enigma to Kakashi, as were the rest of his team, but Sai was the worst. The boy never got frustrated, he never showed any emotion except for his smile which was obviously fake. _its like he doesn't have any emotions._

Kakashi then thought about the other two members of his team with a slight smile, when he found out that he would be training his sensei's son, and the legacy of his best friend, he was over joyed,

then he met the boys.

Naruto behaved just like his father did on the battlefield, except they weren't on a battlefield, his cold blue eyes reminded Kakashi so much of his sensei, and he found it very hard to figure out what the boy was thinking.

Sasuke acted like the exact opposite of Obito, he had yet to awaken his sharingan but his attitude was very professional for a genin.

Kakashi also realized just how close Naruto and Sasuke were, the two were like brothers, and their teamwork was a joy to watch.

Naruto and Sasuke were on their way to the Namikaze mansion. Naruto was going to make good on his promise to Sasuke when they were 10 years old.

Sasuke was very elated, but a passerby would never know. Naruto could tell he was excited by the subtle signs he displayed: the slightly quickened pace, his hands at his sides instead of in his pockets, and his eyes glancing back and forth on the road, yup Sasuke was excited, and who wouldn't be, people would kill for the opportunity just to see inside of the scroll vault of the Yondaime, let alone learn jutsu from it. Naruto had already explained to him that it was impossible for Sasuke to learn the Hirashin, but he said there were tons of other jutsu he could learn.

The two boys didn't tell anyone about their deal because it could attract a lot of unwanted attention. Naruto hadn't taken a look inside of his fathers vault since he was 12 years old, back then he didn't understand a lot that was in the scroll, and when he graduated, he waited till he and Sasuke had a day off to go back inside.

_That was a really good bet,_ Naruto thought to himself, the two boys were basically like brothers, and without question they knew each other better than anyone else.

They were walking down the street, and they took a turn into the richer part of Konoha, in this part of the village was where the clans lived, the Hokage, and all the members of the council.

When they arrived at the manor, no matter how many times Sasuke had visited Naruto's house, he was always awestruck and slightly intimidated by the beautiful building.

The house had been a gift from the village to the Yondaime when it became known that Kushina was pregnant, at first the Namikaze's refused the gift, but the villagers wouldn't budge, they insisted that they lived in it, saying that it was the least the village as a whole could do for two people that had sacrificed their lives in servitude to the village,

it was only one month later that the Kyuubi attacked.

When they entered the house, Naruto led Sasuke down to the basement, and to a wall that looked completely blank.

Sasuke gave Naruto a questioning glance, but Naruto raised his hand to stop the incoming question. Naruto bit his right thumb (it immediately healed) and wiped it on the wall in front of him. The wall morphed into an impressive looking wooden door, Naruto walked up to the door opened it and beckoned Sasuke inside.

"You know, I sort of expected more security for this vault," Sasuke said as he looked around at the impressive display of scrolls that littered the shelves and floor.

"The first seal was a blood seal, to open the door you had to be a Namikaze, your heart had to still be beating, and if you weren't tiny poisenous spikes would stick out from the door handle and into you hand as soon as you touched the door handle," Naruto said.

Sasuke looked at him with raised eyebrows and asked, "how do you know?"

Naruto never told anyone except the Hokage about this incident, "once when I was eight, an Iwa nin infiltrated the village and broke into my house. It was around three in the morning, and I was naturally a sleep, the nin bound me, and gagged my mouth, he brought me down to the basement to this wall, and cut my hand, he then used the blood on the wall, and the door appeared. He looked very happy at first, but when he went to open the door, as soon as his palm went around the handle, he cried out in pain, started convulsing, and he fell down to the floor dead."

Sasuke slightly paled at this revelation, but said, "Well it's a good thing you're my friend."

Naruto nodded his head, and the two boys started to look for something "useful".

After a few minutes of learning, Sasuke found something that caught his eye: the Rasengan. "Yo, look at this," Sasuke said to Naruto."

"What is it?" Naruto asked as he walked over.

"Its some jutsu called the Rasengan, it's described as an A-rank jutsu that is an offensive jutsu that your element can be added to, and it doesn't require any hand signs," Sasuke summarized as he read the description.

"Wow, that sounds pretty sick, is that the jutsu you want to learn?" Naruto asked.

"Ya, it seems like it could be useful, and Itachi wouldn't be able to copy it," Sasuke said in a contented voice.

Naruto had tried to get Sasuke to stop focusing on killing his brother, it had led to many arguments over what was more important: restoring the clan, or killing Itachi. Sasuke didn't obsess over killing Itachi as much as when he was younger, but in the end, all of his training always led to being strong enough to kill his older brother. _The only one that could probably convince Sasuke to give up his quest of vengeance would be Hinata, _Naruto thought.

As much as Naruto tried to convince Sasuke to stop trying to kill Itachi, he could understand where he was coming from, having an older brother that you idolized, butcher your whole family right in front of you,

yeah he would probably want to kill him as much as Sasuke wanted to as well.

Sasuke took the scroll containing the Rasengan, and said he would return it when he was done. Sasuke then bid farewell, and went to train.

Naruto then decided he would try to do something he hadn't done in years,

Visit his tenant.

Naruto went into his massive bedroom, closed and locked the door. He then got into a meditative pose and entered the recesses of his mind.

…

…

…

He woke up in a weird building, 75% of the room was a cold office building, the other fourth was a warm inviting room that had a fireplace, and a cozy recliner._ That's weird, last time I came down here the living room section and the office section were half and half._

Naruto exited the strange room, and entered a dark one-way corridor that led to a larger room. He swiftly walked down the corridor, and entered the large room. The room was the size of an aircraft hanger, and at the far end of the room, there was a huge cage.

Naruto quickly walked over to the cage, the only reason he wasn't winded from the brisk walk was the fact he trained excessively in endurance.

He got up to the cage, but stayed 20 feet away, and he addressed his tenant, "Hello Kyuubi," Naruto said as he sat down to get comfortable. Two giant red slitted eyes peered out at Naruto from the dark cage, the cage was so dark that the eyes seemed to be floating in mid air.

"**Hello, Naruto, I wondered when you would pay me another visit,** the Kyuubi said in its booming voice.

"**Why have you come back here? ?"** the Kyuubi said in a disinterested tone.

"I had a couple questions I wanted to be answered."

"**Oh really," **the Kyuubi replied in the same disinterested tone,** "what questions might those be?" **

"Well, I wanted to know if you would allow me to use some of your chakra, because what type of jincuuriki would I be if I didn't use my "gift" to help me out in battle?"

"**You have a good point, you would be a pathetic jinchuuriki if you didn't use my chakra, but I demand something in return."**

"And what would that be," Naruto asked in cold voice.

"**I wish to be able to see out of your eyes, and hear your thoughts."**

"Ok," _I thought he was gonna make some ridiculous request, that's not too bad._ "Will there be any adverse effects from using your chakra?"

"**I don't know,"** the Kyuubi replied in a sarcastic tone.

"That's bull, you've had many jinchuuriki, and you don't know what sort of adverse effects the chakra could have!" Naruto asked in an irritated tone, _no, I need to remain cool, if I lose my head it will get me nowhere._

"**You want my chakra, I'm allowing you to use it, be thankful that I am, and that I cannot kill you, because you would have been dead before you entered the room," **the fox said in an irritated tone.

Naruto just scoffed at the small rant, the fox didn't scare him.

"I have one more question, what will happen to you when I die?"

The Kyuubi's eyes widened slightly in surprise of the question, but he answered the question, **"Honestly I don't know, either I will die, or I will be set free. I do know that you can alter the seal so that when you die I will be released."**

"And why would I want to do that?" Naruto asked in a curious tone, "You killed my parents, and almost destroyed my vil…." But before he could finish he was cut off by the Kyuubi, **"Don't talk to me like you actually care about the village boy, in that cesspool how many people do you actually care about, the ramen girl, the Uchiha, and the Hyuuga. What would you do if all of them died, or left the village?" **the fox roared.

"I would do everything in my power to bring them back," Naruto said with resolve.

"**What if they don't want to come back, what would you put first, your duty to a village that is scared of you, or your friendship to the only three people in the world that actually cared about you?**

To that question, Naruto didn't have an answer, and it was specifically for reasons like this that he hated having to talk to the fox. It pointed out the short comings in his life, and very often, it made him realize just how lonely he was.

"I don't know," Naruto said as he looked down to his feet.

"**That's what I thought, don't make judgements without proof."**

"But why would I release you?" Naruto asked in a firm tone, "You still killed my parents."

When Naruto asked this question, he noticed that the fox's demeanor changed, the small amount of killer intent that the fox had been emmitting suddenly stopped.

"**I'm not proud of what happened 14 years ago,** the fox said in a remorseful tone, **"but I'll have you know, that I wasn't in control when I attacked the village."**

Naruto's interest was now peaked,_ what does it mean, it wasn't in control?_

"**If I tell you who was behind the attack, you have to promise to release me when you die, and you have to do everything in your power to make ths man suffer."**

"You have my word, I'll release you when I die, but you cannot attack anyone of my close friends, or my family if I have one when I die."

"**We have an accord, lets seal it with a blood vow."**

Naruto nodded and took a kunai out of his pouch, and slit his palm, the fox also bit its paw, and held it out through the bars of the cage. Naruto walked up with his bleeding hand and he put it on the outstretched bleeding paw of the Kyuubi.

"**Do you, Naruto Namikaze swear, to the best of your ability, kill the man who tricked me into attacking Konoha, and do you swear to release me of my prison when you die?"**

"Yes," Naruto said in a voice void of emotion or doubt.

After Naruto said yes, visible purple chakra circled the two appendiges, and swiftly disappeared.

"**The man's name is Uchiha Madara."**

…

…

…

Naruto wasn't sure what happened, but he woke up in back in his bedroom.

_What time is it?_

He exited the room, and walked down the hallway towards his kitchen, he looked at the clock and had a slight double-take, it said it was three in the morning.

_Three in the morning! What the heck! When I went to talk the Kyuubi it was only 4:30._

It was then that all of the memories of his conversation with the Kyuubi came roaring back into his mind.

_Madara Uchiha! Madara Uchiha how the heck is he still alive! he fought the fist Hokage for the right to be Hokage. I NEED to get stronger._

Naruto then went into the bathroom to take a look at himself, _the fox said that there wouldn't be any effects from using his chakra, but he was probably lying._

When Naruto entered the bathroom, he immediately went to the mirror to check himself. He took one look in the mirror and was relived that there was only one change in his appearance

He had purple slitted eyes.

_I know you ca hear me, do you give me a constant stream of chakra, or can I turn it on or off?_

**Its not a constant stream, but because your body has been "tainted" with my chakra, your eye color will never go back to being blue.**

**A few perks to having the eyes differently is that you will be able to see a lot farther than you normally would, and if your chakra control became good enough, you would be able to cast genjutsu with your eyes.**

**You will also be able to access some of my killer intent.**

_Cool that will be very helpful._

**You can't access all of it though, but as you get older you will be able to harness more off my chakra, and killer intent.**

_How much power are you giving me right now?_

**Half a tails worth, if I give you more it will start to damage your body, once your musceles have fully developed I'll be able to channel two tails worth of power all the time. Be careful though, there is a type of sharingan, Mangyeko sharingan can suppress my chakra, that is what Madara used to control me.**

_Should I tell the Hokage about Madara?_

**Absolultley not! I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't believe you, and if they did, Madara probaby has spies in the council.**

_Ok, I need to become a chuunin as soon as possible so I'm going to go train._

Naruto walked out of the bathroom, and into the dojo that was under his bedroom. He created five shadow clones to start wall-walking to help his chakra control. And he created five more to go to the library to start reading up on things he was lacking in. The number one thing he had to work on was his chakra control, it was his lack of control that made him unable to do a regular bushin jutsu. Naruto looked at his clones, they would walk on the ground of the dojo till they came up to a wall, when they came up to the wall, they proceeded it, two of the clones fell down when they reached the ceiling,_ shows how much I need to improve. _

Naruto had already found out his chakra element, it was wind the same as his fathers. He had read a couple wind jutsu's but he only knew two: Futon: wind stream jutsu, and Futon: wind repeating bullet jutsu. Both jutsu could be maintained as long as the person kept flowing chakra into the jutsu, but Naruto's control was so bad, that he could only hold them for two minutes max before he exhausted himself.

Naruto trained until it was 8:oo in the morning, when he dispelled his clones he was bombarded with their memories. He walked up to the wall and put his first foot, then his second foot, and proceeded to walk around the dojo on the wall._ Kakashi-sensei will be pleased when he sees how much I've improved._

Despite not sleeping for the past twenty four hours, Naruto wasn't tired at all. He went to the kitchen and grabbed some breakfast before heading out the door. _I should go to the training ground to see if Sasuke or Sai is there._

Naruto didn't want to be caught up in the morning foot traffic, so he jumped up to the roofs of the building, and took off towards training ground 11. It was only 8:45, so he wasn't surprised to see that neither Sasuke nor Sai was there,_ I wonder how Sasuke is coming along with the rasengan, I should swing by training ground 32, and see if Manami is in._ and with that final thought, Naruto sped off towards the other training ground 32.

The route that Naruto took to get to the training ground led him past training ground 44, the forest of death. A normal person would probably involuntarily shiver about going into a place like that, but Naruto was actually intrigued by it. _Would you recommend that I train in there?_

**I don't see why not, it would be good to get some experience, even if its from wild animals.**

Naruto took another look at the forest, and made a mental note to check it out later. He continued on his way towards the training ground 32. When he arrived at the training ground, he was surprised to see that only the genin of team 7 were in the clearing. He walked past the iron fence, and enterd the clearing. When he walked in he noticed what everyone was doing: Manami working on some sort of earth jutsu, while Sakura was practicing genjutsu on Riku, who was practicing breaking out of it.

"Hey everybody," Naruto said to get all of their attention. Manami stopped his earth jutsu, and walked up to Naruto and shook his hand, "Hey Naruto, you come by for a spar?" the tall teen asked.

"Yah, I went by my training ground, but no one was there, so I decided to stop by." By the time Naruto had finished addressing Manami, the girls had stopped practicing, and had come by to give their greetings, "Hi Naruto," both girls said simultaneously.

"Yo," Naruto replied with a slight wave.

"Did you come by to train with us?" Riku asked in anticipation.

"No, I actually came by to spar with Manami," Naruto replied, "but if my sensei is late to our already late meetings, I guess I could train with you guys."

"Cool"

"Sweet"

"Awesome," all of them said at the same time, Naruto noticed that Riku seemed happier than the other two.

_I actually wouldn't mind going out with her if she is a decent kuniochi._

**I don't know kid, you should try to stay awy from fan girls.**

NAutp just ignord the Kyuubi though

"Hey, where is you guy's sensei, I haven't met them yet?" Naruto asked.

"Our sensei is away on an important mission that was specifically requested for him, he'll be back in about a week," Riku said with a slight blush. It happened very seldom, but every now and then, a mission would come up that would require a jonin sensei to leave his genin team. Most of thses missions were when an important client would request a certain person to carry out the mission.

"Lets get this started, Manami." Naruto said as he started walking away from the girls.

Manami just started walking towards where Naruto stood, and stood 20 feet away from him, and took up the tiger stance. Naruto just stood there, and waited for Manami to come after him. _I feel really powerful, is that because of your chakra? _

**No, it's the results of your training.**

Manami was waiting for Naruto to make the first move, and he saw a few expressions cross his face: confidence, curiosity, happiness. All of these emotions flashed across his face very quickly, and if Manami was a fresh out of the academy student, he would have missed them. Manami was 16 years old, and he had been on another genin team before team seven. When the chuunin exams came around, Manami held his ground while trying to help his teammates as much as possible. But he never made it past the second round. It wasn't his fault, his sensei always told him that if the chuunin exams were an individual test, he would have passed with ease.

Riku was on his previous team, and they were good friends. Manami acted like an older brother towards the girl, and had saved her life on a few occasions. When Riku was fresh out of the academy, she was still very unaware of the evils in the world that happened everyday. She had a small chakra reserve, but she tried very hard to improve especially after Manami saved her life. After the death of her teammate, someone she had known for a long time, Riku had started to take her training even more seriously, and when the chuunin exams came around, this time they were all getting through.

Naruto stared at Manami for about a minute before rushing in with impressive speed._ Crap! He's fast!_ Manami thought while doging and blocking his punches.

"Wow, he's not holding back," Sakura said to herself, but Riku heard.

"What do you mean?" Riku asked

"When we were at the academy, Naruto would always hold back during spars except for when he fought Sasuke-kun," Sakura said while looking at the match.

_So he's more powerful than he's showed to his classmats,_ Riku thought.

"When he and Sasuke fought, who would win?"

"It was always a toss up, but you could tell from the spar, that even though they were best friend they hated losing to each other."

_I would love to spar with him one day, and maybe after I show him how powerful I am he'll go out with me. _

Naruto ducked under a lariat from Manami, the rules for the spar were simple, no jutsus. Naruto was pretty good at taijutsu, but he wasn't as good as Manami. _Maybe I should try using some more chakra?_

**I wouldn't recommend it, you still don't know how you'll react to it in battle, and it wouldn't do you much good if you accidentaly killed a comrade.**

_True _

Naruto jumped back from Manami, but before Manami could catch his breath, Naruto was back on him, _I'll have to tire him out._

Naruto went with a right jab that Manami dodged, but when the tall boy dodged to the left Naruto followed with a brutal roundhouse kick.

Manami blocked the roundhouse kick with his arm, but that was a mistake.

Neither Naruto nor Manami realized just how much power was poured into the kick, and when Manami tried to block with only his forearm, a sickening snap could be heard throughout the training ground.

Manami didn't yell out in pain, he was a ninja after all, but you could tell from his face that he was in a world of hurt.

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked as she and Riku ran up to Manami.

"I just freaking had my arm broken, do I look ok?" Manami hissed.

"Lets just get him to the hospital," Naruto said.

As they hoisted Manami to his feet, Naruto was busy talking to the Kyuubi.

_What the hell was that!_

**Settle down, I don't think you realized it, but you were flowing chakra through you limbs. Your chakra control improved so much that you started unconsciously doing it, you remind me of a medic nin I know…**

_If I channel chakra through my limbs, the attacks become more powerful;_

_That could be useful._

**Don't overdo it though, your chakra control is still shotty at best, using that in battle would basically be a waste of chakra till your control improves. **

Naruto was so engrossed in listening to the Kyuubi, that he didn't even realize they were at the hospital, ot was only a short walk from the training ground to the hospital. When they entered the doors, the first room was a reception desk. The girls took their injured teammate up to the desk, and they had him administered. The girls returned back to where Naruto stood.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Manami," Naruto started, "some weird stuff happened last night, and I'm still getting used to it."

"Ya i could tell, your eyes are purple," Riku said.

_She's pretty obsevant, none of the others seemed to have noticed. _

"Do you girls want to train with my team today?"Naruto asked, _what the heck am I thinking, they'll probably spend more time oogling at me or Sasuke that actually doing anything._

As soon as the request left his mouth, the girls instantly complied. As the walked down the street towards the training ground, Riku started questioning Naruto about the jutsu he learned.

"What jutsus do you know?" Riku asked.

"I only know four, but they range from B to S rank," Naruto said. When he mentioned S-rank both girls nearly tripped over their own feet.

"What is the S-rank jutsu you know?" Riku asked, before realizing what she just asked, _as if he'd even tell us._

"I know two S-rank, one of them is an advanced clone techinique, the other is top secet."

"Could you show us the clone jutsu?" Sakura asked as they neared the training field.

"Sure," and Naruto flashed through the familiar hand signs. When he was done, two identical clones of Naruto stood next to him. The clones waved at the girls and ran off to the training ground to see if anyone was there.

"Wow that's so cool," Riku said, you could clearly hear the admiration in her voice, as they entered training ground 11. The clones were currently talking to Sasuke while Sai was sitting down painting.

Naruto walked up to the two boys and asked in an exasperated tone, "Where is Kakashi, its 10 o'clock?"

"I don't know," Sai said while not even looking up from his painting. Sasuke just shrugged his shoulders while he was busy arguing with one of Naruto's clones.

"Hi Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shouted as she ran towards the raven haired boy.

As soon as Sakura ran off, Riku went on the offensive, "So if your sensei isn't here than are you going to be free this afternoon?"

"Yah," Naruto said hesitantly.

"You want to grab something to eat after we train?" Riku said with huge puppy dog eyes.

Naruto made the grave mistake that men have committed since the beginning of time

He looked at her eyes.

He was about to comply with her request when something struck him that he hadn't noticed before, _When did I say they could train with us?_

**Well this will be interesting.**

_There wont be any harm in training with them, after all I did put there teammate in the hospital._

"Ok," Naruto said simply.

"Sweet, lets go train," Riku said as she grabbed Naruto's hand and dragged him towards the clearing.

_What the hell did i just get myself into!_

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><p><strong>Please review, if everybody that favorited this gave me a review, i would be the happiest teen alive! <strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**sorry for the late update, i had exams the past week and i was busy studying**

**if u haven't checked out the Plsyation Vita, i encourage you to look it up**

**i don't own Naruto or Playstation Vita**

**i wish i did...**

* * *

><p>Team 11 and Team 7 were currently eating at Ichiraku's.<p>

Manami had been released from the hospital yesterday, but his left arm was all bandaged up. He had a dislocated arm and a broken humorous, all from one kick! The two teams had become a lot closer over the past week, Team 7's sensei had not yet returned from his mission, and so the two teams would train together everyday.

Kakashi still managed to find a way to be late for their already late training, but when he did come he taught both teams a lot of things.

The two teams planned to go to the mission hall to grab one to do together. Because of the absence of team 7's sensei the two teams had asked if they could go on D-ranked missions together.

"So Sasuke-kun, after we do our D-ranks for the day, you want to do something together later on?" Sakura asked hopefully.

"I wont have time," Sasuke began in a fake disappointed voice, "I still have a jutsu to work on."

"Oh…" Sakura said, clearly disappointed.

_Can't she take a hint! She's asked me that everyday for the past week!_

Naruto just looked at his best friend with an amused smirk, he knew the jutsu that Sasuke was talking about, the rasengan.

Sasuke had poured his heart and soul into learning the jutus, but progress was really slow, and he was still only on the second stage of the jutsu. Naruto and Sasuke still hadn't told anyone that Sasuke was learning the jutsu, and as a result the two had to figure it out themselves.

The problem Sasuke had was that his chakra control was still pretty pretty bad and as a result, he would tire himself out before he could pop the rubber ball. Naruto had taught Sasuke, the Kage Bushin in an effort to get better control quickly, but he still had little to show after a week of practicing.

It was now Riku's turn to try to rope Naruto into a date with her, she naturally sat down next to Naruto and asked, "So, if Sasuke is going to be busy later on do you want to go to a movie or something?" she asked with the puppy dog eyes. "Well…"Naruto began, he was not aware that Ayame was shooting Riku a dangerous glare. "I guess so, but I have some training to do, so I will probably be free around 6'ish."

Riku had a triumphant look, and returned the glare back to Ayame.

_Eat that ramen girl!_

Naruto didn't really mind hanging around Riku, its not like he had a crush on her, but she was a really good kuniochi and really fun to be around.

Sai looked like he was ignoring all the little interaction between the two teams, but on the inside he was making mental notes to talk to Danzo about.

_Riku seems unusually happy about spending time with Naruto, and what is this jutsu Sasuke keeps talking about?_

After a ten more minutes of sitting around and talking, the two teams, left the ramen stand, and proceeded to walk towards mission hall.

"I hope we could get something more exciting than catching a stupid cat again," Sakura complained. The two teams combined had caught Tora seven times already, and they had graduated only three weeks ago!

"I know right, I'm actually glad I'm hurt right now cuz those D-ranks would drive me crazy," Manami said with a chuckle.

He quickly stopped chuckling however when he felt the combined killer intent of everybody else including Sai.

"It was just a joke," Manami lied while he waved his non-broken arm in a placating manner.

They arrived at the mission hall and proceeded to walk up to the desk to ask for a mission.

"Teams eleven and seven requesting a mission," Naruto said in a professional tone. The chuunin looked up from the papers she was filing and smiled when she saw Naruto, "of course, any preferred rank?"

Naruto looked at the five active shinobi and said, "I think we'll try a C-rank."

The chuunin nodded her head, and began looking for a low chuunin mission for the genin. Normally, the sensei's would accompany their genin, but seeing as Kakashi still had a month to go before active duty, and team seven's sensei's absence, the Hokage had decided to temporarily merge the teams till Kakashi healed.

The chuunin found a mission, and looked up at Naruto while handing him the file. "The Hokage wanted to speak with all of you genin, and don't open up the file till you get into his office," the chuunin said.

They then left the mission hall and proceeded towards the Hokage tower.

"I hope its something interesting, like we get to fight other ninja or something cool like that," Riku said.

"Yah it would be pretty cool to get some real action," Naruto said. The last time he had actually fought with someone was a two years ago when a crazed, drunken Konoha ninja tried to kill him.

"I wonder if we'll be leaving the village," Sakura mused out loud.

"They probably wouldn't send new genin out of the village, let alone on a mission where there is the possibility of fighting enemy shinobi," Sasuke said. Everyone there except Manami and Sai nodded their heads in agreement.

Naruto had not really paid much attention to the general populace of Konoha since the spar with Kakashi, he took a glance around at all the people wlaking in the streets, or trying to sell their wares, and he could definatly sense one thing

Fear.

He noticed that everyone in their little group was given a small lane to walk through, it was common courtesy to treat all ninja, regardless of rank, with a certain amount of respect.

Naruto on the other hand was given a wider birth than everyone else, and he noticed the scared looks all the civilians were giving him. Apparently they thought that he defeated Kakashi on his own.

_Why are they afraid of me?_

**They are afraid of what they don't understand, the stronger you get, the worse their fear will become.**

_How do I get them to not fear me?_

**I don't know, I do know that humans tend to end up hating things that they fear; even though your father was the fourth, I don't think that will stop people from hating you. It will probably become even worse when you start to use my chakra in public, so watch your back!**

_Ok, thanks for the input._

**No problem…** and the Kyuubi went back to sleep.

They arrived at the Hokage tower, but instead of going in to see the Hokage, Manami bid them all farewell and went home. All of the genin walked up to the secretary, and Sasuke addressed her, "Excuse me, we are supposed to see the Hokage about our C-rank mission."

The secretary didn't look up from her work at first, _why would Hokage-sama want to see a bunch of genin about a C-rank mission, _the secretary looked up from her papers and realized who she was talking to: the last Uchiha, and the Namikaze heir.

"Right away," She said as she led them into the office. Sarutobi was seated behind his desk, and when the genin walked in he nodded in acknowledgment. All of the genin gave him a bow, and Naruto walked up to his desk and handed him the mission file.

Sarutobi looked over the mission file, put it back on his desk and addressed all of the genin.

"The mission," he said while he held up the file, "is to escort a bridge builder to Nami no Kuni, to protect him while he finishes his building the bridge. There should not be any contact with hostile forces, the most there would be would be bandits, if you come across any foreign shinobi do not engage except in self defence, am I understood?"

"Hai Hokage-sama," the genin chorused.

"We are taking a big risk sending out five genin, and not to depreciate the life of miss Haruno, and Sai, but Naruto, Sasuke, and Riku are extremely important to the future of Konoha," Sarutobi said. All of the genin looked at Riku in surprise. _What's so special about her?_ Sasuke thought.

Sarutobi saw their questioning faces and chuckled, "So Riku didn't tell you?" when all of the genin shook their heads no, Hiruzen beckoned Riku to tell what her importance to the village was. Riku looked slightly embarrassed but said in a strong voice, "As most of you know, my chakra affinity is wind," Naruto didn't know this, and his interest was now peaked, "wind affinity is VERY rare to Konoha ninja, and is most common to ninja from Suna." Naruto's interest was now really peaked, _what relation does she have to Suna? _"I'm the daughter of the Suna liason to Konoha, my mother was a Konoha nin before she died, and my father has to constantly travel back and forth between the two villages, but he is a Suna nin. The reason I do not live in Suna is that the villages didn't want me to be separated from my mother."

All of the genin looked at her in surprise, Riku's sensei and Manami knew of her position, but she had forgotten to tell everyone else. She basically lived by herself, and over the course of a year she would probably only see her father for a month's worth of time. She loved her father very much, but she knew if Konoha ever went to war with Suna, she would potentially have to fight her father, Riku took an oath to Konoha, and she wasn't breaking it for anybody.

"As an extra precaution, we will be having a chuunin lead the team," Sarutobi said, and when he finished, Hana Inuzaka walked into the room and saluted all the genin and bowed to the Hokage.

"Hokage-sama, are these the genin I will be leading on the mission?"

"Yes, team 11's sensei has been injuried, and he will be incapacitated for one more month, team 7's sensei is away on an S-rank mission (Riku and Sakura looked at the Hokage in shock) and their third teammate has been injured as well," Sarutobi said.

Hana nodded her head, and Sarutobi dismissed all of the teens, except Naruto. Naruto walked back towards the Hokage and asked, "What can I do for you Sarutobi-sama?"

Hiruzen didn't really know how to approach this subject, so he cut straight to the point, "Naruto, why are your eyes purple?"

_Oh crap! What should I do!_

**Tell him that you have access to my chakra, and it tainted your eyes, but don't tell him anything else. **

Naruto didn't respond at first, but his poker face never fell, and Hiruzen couldn't read him.

When Naruto responded, it was in a cold dead voice that reminded Sarutobi so much of one of his students, "A couple days ago I accessed the Kyuubi's chakra, and it tainted my body, this," Naruto said as he pointed to his eyes, "is a side effect, but I can see better than I ever have before."

Sarutobi was slightly frightened, _he wasn't supposed to access the chakra till Jiraya was here, I'll have to summon him back quickly._

Sarutobi looked at Naruto and said, "I don't want you using the Kyuubi's chakra anymore till I can have someone look at the seal, we have to make sure that the Kyuubi cannot break free."

To say that Naruto was pissed was an understatement, _what type of jinchuuriki would I be if I didn't use your chakra! Jinchuuriki's in Kumo start training with their demons at SEVEN years old!_

Naruto responded in the same tone of voice, "Sarutobi-sama, I had hoped you had complete faith in my father's seal, to doubt the sealing skill of the fourth is slightly insulting, and what type of jinchuriki would I be if I didn't use its chakra?"

Sarutobi was kinda put off that Naruto questioned his decision, but he realized where Naruto was coming from, and he realized how bad this probably sounded, _I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks everyone is afraid of him, this is REALLY bad. _The last thing that Sarutobi wanted was for the village to be afraid of Naruto, because he knew that people tended to hate things that they fear. "Naruto, it is just a precautionary step, and after I get someone to see your seal, you can use the demons chakra."

Naruto gave a swift bow, and left the office before Hiruzen could say anything else Sarutobi just sighed _Naruto, what are we going to do with you?_

When Naruto was out of the office, he noticed that tam 7 and eleven were there, he walked right past them, slammed the Hokage doors open, and walked at a brisk pace towards his house.

**Kid, are you sure that was wise, he is the Hokage after all.**

_No, I'm sure that WAS wise, he's just afraid of me like everyone else!_

…

…

…

Sasuke was talking to Sakura and Riku, when Naruto stepped out of the Hokage's office, walked right by them, he ignored Riku as she tried to talk to him, and threw open the Hokage tower's doors. Sasuke was sure he was the only one that noticed Naruto's eyes took on a redder tone of purple, _I'll visit him later to see what's up. _Sasuke looked around at all the kids here, he noticed that Sakura seemed kind of happy, Sai was looking at the Hokage tower doors while pondering something, and Riku looked very sad, almost on the verge of tears.

"Hokage-sama probably said something to him that he didn't like,

in case you haven't noticed, ever since Naruto's eyes turned purple he's had a very quick temper," Sasuke said to the whole group, "I'll talk to him tonight to see whats up." Sasuke said as he also exited the tower.

…

…

…

When Naruto arrived at the manor he immediately went to meditate to ease his mind. By the time he finished meditating 8:00 at night, and he was pretty hungry. He went into the kitchen and prepared some sushi to eat (its healthier than ramen) and he sat down and watched tv. He was watching some weird show in which a bunch of twenty someodd year olds went to Italy and lived there for a few weeks, _totally pointless._

It was about 8:45 when his doorbell rang, Naruto had no question as to who would be at his door at the weird hour. Sasuke only had to wait at the door for a minute before Naruto answered.

"Whats up?" Naurot said as he led Sasuke into his living room.

"Mind telling me what the hell happened at the Hokage tower?" Sasuke said in a serious manner.

"I was told I cannot use the Kyuubi's chakra until someone looks at the seal, I don't even know when that will be, and our first C-rank mission is tomorrow, and who knows how long that will take."

"Why are your eyes a reddish purple color?"

"My eyes aren't purple?" Naruto asked, when Sasuke said no Naruto jumped up from the couch and checked himself in the mirror in the bathroom.

_Why aren't my eyes purple?_

**I'm not sure, maybe its because you were so pissed this morning that you used more of my chakra.**

_So the more of your chakra that I use, the redder my eyes will get?_

**Looks like it…**

Naruto exited the bathroom and told Sasuke the story of him meeting the Kyuubi a week ago. It was about ten when Sasuke left, and Naruto got ready for bed. He enterd his master bathroom, and spent a good half hour in the Jacuzzi to release his stress. Naruto hadn't slept all that well since he accessed the Kyuubi's chakra, but he didn't need it because his regenerative abilities kept him refreshed even if he only had fifteen minutes of sleep.

…

…

…

In a dark, and well concealed cave, Sai was giving his weekly report to Danzo.

"Danzo-sama, I noticed today that Naruto-san's eyes are no longer blue."

"No longer blue, what color are his eyes now?"

"His eyes are now a reddish purple color."

Danzo immediately put two and two together, and he realized whatt was going on, "Has he been slightly irritable lately?"

"Hai Danzo-sama, and sometimes he appears to be deep in thought, more so than a normal person," Sai said.

_He's probably talking to the Kyuubi, I'll have to have somebody tail them on their mission tomorrow, _"Good job Sai," the old man said as he walked away.

…

…

…

It was 7:00 in the morning when Naruto arrived at the Hokage tower, when he entered the room that they were supposed to meet their client, he saw that he was the last one to arrive.

"Yo Naruto," Sasuke said while playing Playstation Vita. Naruto didn't say anything back to Sasuke but he looked over at Riku, who was sitting quietly in a corner. He was going to go over and apologize for yesterday, but on his way there Sai asked him a question.

"Why are your eyes magenta?"

"Mind your own business," Naruto said to Sai while not even turning to face him.

"Your business is my business Naruto-san," Sai said with a cheery smile.

"No, its not."

Naruto ignored anything else that Sai said, and when he was next to Riku he sat down next to her. He truly didn't want to lose a friend, and so he was doing something that he really hated to do

apologize.

"I'm sorry for what happened yesterday," Naruto began, "Some weird crap has been going on, and I have to relearn to control my emotions."

_He's apologizing, I could turn this into my benefit,_ Riku thought deviously. She thought about using tears to get him to do what she wanted, but she didn't want to overdo the effect. _We never did go out last night…_

"I forgive you, but you have to make it up to me," Riku said. Naruto looked at her in curiosity, "What do you want me to do?"

"Well…" RIku began, but she was interrupted when Hana and some old drunk entered the room.

"Listen up," Hana began, "This is our client, Tazuna-san. He is builder that we have to protect, and if we have to, assist in the building of the bridge in Nami no Kuni."

All of the genin gave Tazuna an appraising look,_ he's rather fat, you can clearly smell the alcohol, and he looks like he's blind without his glasses,_ Sasuke thought.

_I hope he's not a pedo….,_ Riku and Sakura thought at the same time. Naruto wasn't really thinking about the bridge builder, but the task that lay before him.

"This is my protection!" Tazuna asked in shock. To him he saw a two teens, one with blond hair the other with black, that seemed rather intimidating despite their young age, he also saw this pale faced kid with a short sword strapped to his back, and the brunette with the violet shirt looked powerful enough, and she also had a sword strapped to his back. The last two people of the group, Hana and Sakura slightly puzzled him, Hana had to be powerful if she commanded to the intimidating teens, and he couldn't tell anything about Sakura, _don't judge a book by its cover, especially not ninja, _Tazuna thought.

"Yes this is your protection," Hana said, "Is their a problem?"

"N-NO, I'm just surprised that I get good looking ninja to protect me despite the fee I paid."

Hana then turned back to her team, and spoke to them, "we are leaving immediately, I hope you have everything packed, we will be stopping at 6:00 in the at night for rest, we should be arriving in Nami no Kuni tomorrow around mid day." after Hana said those words, the genin filled out of the room, out of the tower, and into the streets. It only took them 5 minutes to get ot the front gate of the village, and when Hana presented the proper paper work, they proceeded right through.

When they were on the path towards the Land of the Waves, Riku sidled up next to Naruto, "I never got to tell you what you had to do," Riku began.

"No you didn't," Naruto said while keeping his eyes on the road.

"Well, when we get back from the village, I expect to be taken to a very nice restaurant, and maybe even a movie," Riku said in a self righteous tone.

"Ok," Naruto said, "What movie do you want to go to?"

"I don't know, the new Princess Gale movie is going to be released in a few days, and I've been a big fan for years."

Inwardly, Naruto groaned, he HATED the Princess Gale movies, and now he had to pay for someone to watch it, on the outside Naruto maintained a poker face, and even cracked a small smile at Riku, who started blushing.

"Alright, we'll do that the night after we get back," Naruto said with the same small smile. Riku talked to him for another ten minutes, but he really wanted to go talk to Sasuke and the bridge builder.

"…biggest damned bridge you've ever seen," Tazuna said to Sasuke. Sasuke just gave him a smirk in reply and was about to question the bridge builder about the Land of the Waves when Naruto walked up to the pair.

"Yo, Naruto," Sasuke said as he joined the group.

" 'Sup," Naruto replied.

"Hey, are you THE Naruto Namikaze?" Tazuna asked in surprise. "Yes I am, how do you know who I am, I didn't know I was that famous outside of Konoha?"

"Hehehe," Tazuna gave a slight chuckle, "I think you don't realize just how famous your father was, I'm pretty sure most people in the elemental nations have at least heard of you, and do to your blonde hair it would be hard not to recoginze you."

Naruto slightly paled at his little speech, _I knew I was pretty well known, but I didn't know I was known that much._

**Well you also have to realize that the villagers probably didn't keep it a secret about who you were, need I remind you that you've already had five attempts on your life?**

_True, I need to get stronger…_

**Agreed, when we get back you could train with my chakra in your fathers dojo, he had the walls of the dojo made out of a chakra proof barrier so no one can sense any jutsu being performed in the dojo.**

_That will be useful, especially now that I cant use your chakra._

Unbeknownst to Naruto, Sai was watching his every move, _he seems to have fazed out again…_

The group traveled on for the rest of the day, and it was precisely at 6:00 when they set up camp. The ninja were not particularly tired, but Tazuna was worn out from the journey.

"Man, my back hurts," Tazuna said as he sat down and seemingly produced a bottle of sake out of thin air.

"Ok, we'll set out at 7:30 in the morning," Hana said in a commanding tone, "we should arrive in the Land of the Waves around mid day tomorrow."

"Hai," Riku and Sakura said, while Naruto and Sasuke nodded their heads, Sai just gave his fake smile. Naruto produced two scrolls from his backpack, it was his first mission outside of Konoha so he made sure he had the necessities, his Playstation Vita was the first thing he packed, along with his tent and other less important junk. He pushed some chakra into the scroll that contained his tent, and when that appeared he pushed chakra in to the scroll that contained his beloved Playstation Vita. He unzipped his jacket leaving him in a black long sleeved muscle shirt, unknown to Naruto, Riku was looking at his ripped body and drooling shamlessly.

Sasuke was also going through the same ritual that Naruto was going through simultaneously. He brought out his PSV, and sat down next to Naruto who was sitting around a campfire that Sakura had made.

Sakura and Riku had positioned their tents unusually close to their crushes.

As the combined teams sat around the campfire, they ate the meals that hey had packed in silence. Naruto was sitting next to his bro, and on his left side Riku sat, likewise on Sasuke's right side Sakura sat.

_Those two boys are painfully oblivious to Sakura and Riku's affection, it can't be helped,_

_from what Mom told me, they had very lonely childhoods, and probably don't pick up the subtle signs of affection,_ Hana thought as she watched the interaction.

The group went to sleep early so they could get a quick start on the day tomorrow, Naruto noiticed how close Riku's tent was to his. While they were walking, Sai noticed Naruto and Sasuke constantly whispering something about "big ball", from the snipets of conversation that he heard, apparently it wasn't doing all that well, Sai decided to approach the duo, and ask them what they were talking about.

"…maybe we can work on it during the mission," Naruto said, he was about to say something else to Sasuke when Sai walked up to them.

"I couldn't help but over hear something about big ball, I was wondering just what exactly big ball was?" Sai said with his fake smile.

Hana was a few steps behind the group, and watched the interaction of the teens with narrowed eyes, _their file said that Sasuke and Naruto didn't exactly get along with Sai._

"Big ball is none of your business," Sasuke said. Sai was persistent however and countered, "we are teammates, and I could potentially help with "big ball" from what I over heard, it isn't working out well."

Naruto spoke this time before Sasuke, "I'm pretty sure that you couldn't help us out, even if we did want your help, but I can guarantee that it won't interfere with the mission."

And before Sai could get in another word, Sasuke and Naruto quickened their pace, and walked further up the path.

…

…

…

…

…

Meanwhile back in Konoha, Hiruzen was on his way to the weekly council meeting, he was in a relatively good mood, but he had some issues to deal with. His main problem was Naruto.

It was no secret that Naruto Namikaze, and Sasuke Uchiha were like brothers, and no doubt if one of them left the village the other would probably follow. The village had accidentaly ostriced Naruto from society, he had a very lonely childhood, and recent events had sort of reminded the villagers of what he held. When news of his eyes changing color had spread (his blue eyes were the object of many girls fantasies) many theories and rumors spread throughout the village like wildfire. Most of them were rather ludicrous in nature, but it was alarming to Hiruzen just how frightened the villagers had become of Naruto in a short amount of time.

Sarutobi entered the council room, he gave the clan heads an acknowledging nod, and had to stifle rolling his eyes at the civilian council.

As soon as he took the Hokage seat, the questions started rolling in.

"Hokage-sama, why are Namikaze Naruo's eyes now purple? Their have been multiple rumors and questions surrounding the whole ordeal that many villagers want answered," Takahiro said.

Sarutobi decided to tell the truth as to what was going on, despite the fact that Danzo was probably scheming some way to take Naruto from his power. "Naruto used some of the Kyuubi's chakra, and it tainted his body, from what I know there have been no adverse side effects."

The civilian council started murmuring amongst themselves while Tsume Inuzaka asked a question, "Hokage-sama, are you going to allow Namikaze-san to continue using the Kyuubi's chakra?"

"No, I ordered Naruto to not use the Kyuubi's chakra any more until Jiraiya can take a look at the seal to make sure its not weakening.

This statement appeased all of the clan heads, but the civilian side's fears were not so easily assayed. "Hokage-sama, is it a good idea to allow Uchiha Sasuke to stay on the same team as Naruto, Naruto could be under the Kyuubi's influence for all we know?" Sayuka Haruno asked.

"Uchiha Sasuke is like a brother to Naruto, while I can understand your fears, the way Minato designed the seal, the only way that the Kyuubi could take over Naruto, would be at Naruto's own will, and I assure your that we would have known if the Kyuuni had taken over. Naruto was rather upset at me after I told him not to use the Kyuubi's chakra, and I noticed whenever he gets angry he unconsciously taps into the Kyuubi's chakra. We should primarily focus on keeping both boys loyal to Konoha. As you are aware, I am not happy with the way Naruto was treated in his childhood, and I am thoroughly convinced that if Sasuke ever left Konoha, Naruto would follow him.

The shinobi side of the council nodded their heads in agreement, but again the civilian side was not so easily appeased, "Surely Naruto would not betray Konoha for one person!" Misaki Miyu exclaimed.

"I am thoroughly convinced that Naruto would leave Konoha for Sasuke, the only other people that he seems to have a friendship with is the Ichiraku family, and Hinata Hyuuga, and if something were to happen to them and Sasuke left , there would be nothing left to keep Naruto loyal to Konoha," Hiruzen said.

"We should make sure that the Ichiraku's never have a reason to leave Konoha, and I will continue to trian my daughter with all diligence," Hiashi said.

At Hiashi's statement everyone nodded, "When Team 11 retruns from their mission, I will contact Jiraiya and ask him to come back to Konoha and examine Naruto's seal, but until then, this meeting is adjourned.

As Hiruzen exited the council room he was very worried, _I didn't realize how frightened the civilians were of Naruto, it will only get worse because people tend__ to hate things that they feared. _

_Minato, I'm trying the best I can…_

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><p><strong>here's chapter five, hope you enjoyed ! friend me on Psn: rychussnik<strong>

**PLEASE REVIEW, i have a bet with my sister over who's story could get more review, and right now she has more than i do,**

**if i lose the bet BAD stuff will happen lol so please don't let me down.**


	6. Chapter 6

**here's chapter six! hope you enjoy :)**

disclaimer: i dont own Naruto, Emininem, Adele, or playstation Vita

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><p>It was about nine in the morning.<p>

Teams 7 and eleven were only a few hours away from the Land of the Waves, and Naruto was thoroughly enjoying the mission thus far. He was currently listening to his PSV, while carefully surveying the surrounding terrain.

Due to his constant banter with the Kyuubi, he had learned to be a lot more perceptive of everything in life. He tried to think before he talked, he also tried to be more aware of his surroundings, he was also starting to figure out how to read people.

The Kyuubi was also enjoying the mission; he rather enjoyed it when Naruto would listen to music.

_**I'm not afraid (I'm not afraid) to take a stand (to take a stand) **_

_**And everybody (everybody) come take my hand (come take my hand)**_

_**We'll walk this road together, through the storm **_

_**Whatever weather cold or warm**_

_**Just let'n you know that your not alone**_

_**Holla if you fell like you've been down the same road!**_

The Kyuubi sang along with Eminem. Adele was the fox's favorite, but he couldn't help but be moved by the rhymes that Eminem produced.

Naruto was walking slightly ahead of the main group, Sakura and Riku were bringing up the rear while Hana, and Tazuna were talking. Sasuke wasn't listening to music, but he was in his own world anyway. He was trying desperately to figure out a way to improve his chakra control in a short amount of time, but he was currently stumped in his conundrum.

_Maybe I can work with Naruto after we arrive, _the avenger thought. Sai was keeping pace with Sasuke but he was only taking in his surroundings, and not really focusing on much else.

Naruto was blissfully unaware when he passed a puddle on the pathway, and due to the Kyuubi's relaxed state he didn't really think much of it, **must've rained during the night,** the demon thought lazily.

Sasuke was much more alert though, and immediately went on the defensive when he saw the puddle. It hadn't rained last night, Sasuke didn't get much sleep due to Sakura trying to get into his tent, it also hadn't rained for the past week.

_It could be a genjutsu, I should tell Hana-sempai and see what she thinks, _Sasuke thought. He stopped walking for a second, and silently pointed out the puddle to Sai. Sai nodded in understanding, and took out his ninja-to and appeared to be cleaning it. Sasuke started walking back towards Hana, but before he could reach her, the puddle exploded and two Mist shinobi that were joined by a chain rushed at Sasuke's back.

Further up the road, Naruto was alerted to the presence of the enemy ninja by the flaring of chakra used to dispel the genjutsu. He wiped his head back to the group behind him just in time to see Sasuke dodge an attack by two ninjas joined by a chain. Naruto immediately put away his Playstation Vita and rushed towards Sasuke to help him out.

Sasuke's developing ninja instincts told him to jump, high. When he jumped, he jumped right over the Demon Brothers attack, due to Sasuke's dodge, Meizu and Gozu lost their balance. Sasuke fell from the air with a drawn kunai, and just before he hit the ground, he threw the kunai with pinpoint accuracy to pin the brothers to a tree, by the chain.

Hana, Tazuna, Riku, and Sakura all watched the action from a distance. Hana decided that the boys seemed capable of handling themselves, and they could use the experience anyway.

The force of the kunai thrown by Sasuke caused the two brothers to be thrown into a tree, that didn't stop them however, for as soon as they hit the tree they disconnected the chain between them and started rushing through hand signs.

Sasuke, Naruto, and Sai were all neck and neck as they rushed the two brothers head on. Naruto saw them speeding through hand signs, and he drew out an explosive kunai and threw it at the duo.

Meizu and Gozu saw the kunai coming, but they decided to try to finish the jutsu. They finished their hand signs just as the kunai hit the tree behind them.

Suton: water wave!

A wall of fire, not as big as Kakashi's wall, sprang from the two mist shinobi's mouth, if they had time to finish the jutsu, it could have caused severe damage to the trio. The effects of the jutsu were short lived, Naruto's explosive kunai detonated in between them.

Meizu was blown from the tree, into the trees that were on the side of the path. He collided with another tree, but he didn't lose consciousness, _shit! this hurts, _he thought.

No doubt several of his ribs were broken.

Gozu had the worst bet than his brother, he was blown from the tree but he didn't make it to the other trees surrounding the path. He quickly got up just in time to see shuriken and kunai speeding towards him. He dodged the kunai and shuriken despite his injuries. However, he was unable to dodge when someone yelled out Futon: wind slash!

He looked behind him just in time to see a girl with a short sword give slashes at what appeared to be nothing, but it quickly became apparent what the jutsu was. Several slashes of air sped towards Gozu at break neck speeds, he barely dodged the first one, but he was unable to dodge the other four that were sent his way. The slashes of air cut deep gashes on his body; the gashes were located on his torso and his legs. Unfortunately for Gozu, one of the slashes cut both of his femoral arteries. He started swearing at the Konoha ninjas as he collapsed in a pool of his own blood and he bled out.

Meizu saw his brother die, and his survival instincts kicked in, _I need to get the hell out of here!_ He picked himself up from where he sat, and ran as fast as his injured legs could carry him.

Back in the clearing, Hana watched as Gozu bled out, but she quickly recalled that the other brother was blown into the trees, "Sasuke, Naruto go get the other ninja before he gets away," she commanded.

The two boys nodded and sped off towards where Meizu was blown into the trees. Meizu was running-limping through the forest floor in a desperate effort to get away from the ninjas that were on his tail. His breathing was labored, and he was sure that several of his ribs were broken, his right ankle hurt like hell, and his hearing was screwed up.

Naruto and Sasuke's tracking skills were pretty good from tracking Tora constantly, and Meizu wasn't helping himself out by leaving a trail of blood where ever he ran. The two boys caught up to him rather quickly by jumping through the trees. Naruto flung two shuriken at Meizu, and they pinned him in the back of his knees. Meizu swore as he fell down, but he wasn't done yet, under no circumstances was he going to spill any information of his mission. He discretely drew out an explosive note, and covered the sound of it being ignited by yelling out profanity.

_Won't he shut up! _Sasuke thought as he and Naruto landed a few feet away from where Meizu lay. Naruto walked up to him cautiously and as soon as he reached out to grab Meizu…

**KA-BOOM!**

It was one of the strongest notes that Meizu had ever owned in his entire life, he had bought it when he graduated the academy; he saved it in a secret pouch and planned to detonate it if he was ever captured.

Sasuke wasn't as close to Meizu as Naruto was, but due to the force of the blast he was blown into a tree ten feet behind him. He hit the tree with a crushing force, and he felt three of his ribs break.

Naruto got the worst of the blast, he was blown into a tree thirty feet behind him, his eardrums were blown out, and his left leg was broken in two places. Naruto also suffered burns across all of his body, his black and orange jacket had been ripped to shreds by the blast, and his pants were charred, not to mention a broken collar bone, broken clavicle, and a few broken ribs.

Back in the clearing, as soon as the note was triggered, Hana, Sakura, and Riku were all on high alert.

"Sakura, stay with Tazuna," Hana ordered.

Sakura nodded her head, and when she looked at the bridge builder, she noticed all of the emotions playing across his face, the one most prevalent was shame.

_I wonder what's eating him._

Hana, Sai, and Riku all rushed into the clearing created by the explosion, the first person they saw was Sasuke. He was in bad shape, but because he wasn't as close, he wasn't hurt as bad, but he had several broken ribs, and his eardrums were, damaged, if not ruptured.

"Riku, do you know any medical jutsu?" Hana asked as they examined Sasuke's unconscious body.

"No," Riku said.

"I do," Sai said with his weird smile.

"Good, look over Sasuke and see what injuries he has, we need to find Naruto," Hana said in her commanding tone. The one question she had on her mind was_ why the hell were missing-mist ninjas here?_

Riku and Hana looked around the ruined clearing, trees had been blown to bits and knocked over, and the earth had been ripped up, Hana used here enhanced smell, and they found Naruto pinned by a tree.

"Damn…" Hana muttered as they pulled the tree off of Naruto. She looked over at Riku to see how she was handling the situation. She had tears were streaming down her face as they looked at Naruto. His burns were already starting to heal, but that didn't make him look any better.

_I hope that fox can heal him,_ Hana thought.

"Sai, come over here and look over Naruto, I think he needs attention more than Sasuke," Hana ordered.

"Hai," Sai said as he stopped working on Sasuke, "you can move Sasuke now; there is no risk of injuring him anymore."

"Let's go Riku," Hana ordered, and the two they took Sasuke back to the pathway.

…

…

…

…

…

In Naruto's mind, he woke up in the weird building again,_ Dang it! _

_I hope the fox can heal me._

He exited the room and walked down the familiar corridor, he came to the huge room that housed the Kyuubi and he walked inside with absolutely no fear. As soon as he arrived in front of the cage, he immediately addressed the fox.

"Will you be able to heal me?"

The fox opened his eyes and looked at Naruto in a disappointed way, **yes I can heal you, but you better be careful next time, didn't it alarm you how much he was screaming? Ninja don't usually make that much noise unless it's for a reason.**

"Sorry, I did notice that he was yelling rather loudly, but you really can't blame me, that was my first real combat experience."

**True, I take it that you learned your lesson?**

Naruto nodded his head,** good, now you should go rest, most of your injuries will heal in the next twenty-four hours, so until then I need you to rest while I heal you a minor side effect will be minor amnesia.**

"Thanks," Naruto said gratefully.

**Do not thank me, if me healing you wasn't for our mutual benefit, I wouldn't give a second thought to letting you die.**

Naruto looked the fox dead in the eye, magenta, clashed against red for a brief moment, then Naruto left his mind without another word.

..

..

..

He woke up feeling rather comfortable, he didn't open his eyes at first, but when he did, he was greeted by the sight of Riku, sleeping next to his bed in a chair. _Where am I?_

He got up quietly so he didn't wake up anyone else up, he looked around the room, and noticed in another corner Sasuke lay in a bed, his shirt had been taken off, and his whole mid section had been thoroughly wrapped in bandages. Sakura sat in a chair next to Sasuke's bed, and she was also asleep.

_What time is it?_

He looked down at his right arm, looking for his watch. He noticed that he wasn't wearing any shirt, and his watch was nowhere to be found. He took a few steps from the side of his bed and an intense feeling of hunger swept over him, _I need to eat!_

He walked out of the room that contained parts of the team; he absentmindedly wondered where Sai and Hana were. He closed the door to the room he just exited, and walked down a hallway, he heard voices emulating from downstairs. As he walked down the hallway, he noticed how soft the carpet beneath his feet was. He arrived at the stairs and descended down them in slow steps.

Naruto was sore all over, he had never been sore or stiff his entire life, so he was very unaccustomed to the stiffness he was now feeling. When he reached the bottom step, all of the voices stopped talking, he looked into the living room that was to his right, and saw five people.

He immediately recognized, Sai, Hana, and Tazuna, but the other two people in the room were a mystery to him.

"N-Naruto, what are you doing awake?" Hana asked in a frightened tone, _he should be asleep for another two days at least!_

"Why wouldn't I be awake?" Naruto asked obliviously.

"You don't remember what happened?" Hana asked.

"No, I remember to ninjas attacking us, I remember one of them was killed by Riku, but after that everything goes black."

_At least he remembers the mission, _"Naruto, you remember Tazuna?" Hana asked as she signaled to the old man.

Naruto nodded hid head, but before he could ask whom the other two people were, Hana answered his unasked question, she beckoned towards a pretty woman with black hair.

"This is Tsunamis, and this is the ANBU Cat," Hana said while gesturing towards the other person in the room. _I get a bad vibe from that cat guy,_ Naruto thought, "Hello Tsunamis-san, Cat-senpai," Naruto said as he gave a respective bow to the other people. Tsunamis gave a slight blush at the shirt less boy, but before she could say anything, Naruto asked a question, "So what happened to me and Sasuke?"

"After one of the Demon Brothers was killed by Riku, the other attempted to flee, so I sent you and Sasuke to capture him, you both caught up to him, but before you could capture him, he detonated an HE (high explosive) tag, which killed himself, and gravely injured you and Sasuke.

_A HE tag! I'm lucky to be alive! _Naruto thought, HE tags were only available to jonin, and ANBU in Konoha, but they were not as restricted in other villages.

"How long have I been out?" Naruto asked in an emotionless voice.

"Only one day," Hana said, "you had a broken leg and collar bone, ruptured eardrums, several broken ribs, and third degree burns across all of your body."

"Damn…" Naruto muttered,_ I'll have to remember to thank the fox._

"How badly hurt is Sasuke?" Naruto asked, his voice portraying emotion.

"He only had a few broken ribs, but he'll be fine in a couple weeks, you both should thank Sai, he stabilized your condition on the way here," Hana stated.

"What happened after the explosion?" Naruto asked.

Flash Back

Sai ran over to where Naruto lay in the destroyed trees, he noticed that his burns were already starting to heal. He ran a diagnosis jutsu on him, and paled even more when he learned Naruto's injuries. He didn't attempt to move him, but from his pack, he pulled out a small pill. The pill replenishes most of the fluids lost from burns; he took the pill, and liquefied it using a fire jutsu. He caught the liquefied pill in a small beaker, and took out a syringe. He drew the liquefied pill into the syringe, the liquid was really hot, and when he injected it into Naruto, the blonde boys gave a groan of pain.

Sai then began to heal the injuries that he could while he waited for Riku and Hana to return.

When Hana and Riku brought Sasuke back to Sakura, and Tazuna, as soon as Hana let go of Sasuke she reached for Tazuna and lifted the old drunk by his collar.

"What the HELL was that!" Hana bellowed at the poor man, "We weren't supposed to encounter any enemy ninja! We aren't prepared to fight any opposing shinobi!"

Compared to most of her clansmen, Hana was milder in spirit. She rarely spoke with out thinking of the consequences, something her little brother hadn't mastered yet…

However, whenever one of her comrades was injured or she became frustrated, she would fly off the handle just like her mother. Tazuna admitted to himself that he probably deserved whatever punishment he given, but weren't ninja supposed to be on alert at all times?

"You'd better explain quickly, because Naruto is more injured that Sasuke, and I want a quick explanation!" Hana stated, the venom easily heard in her voice.

The old man gave a sigh of defeat, "You might want to send the girls to get Naruto, it's a long story." Hana lowered the drunk, and turned to Riku and Sakura, "Go and assist Sai, and when he is ready to be moved, help him move Naruto."

"Hai," both girls said, and they ran back into the forest to help Sai. Hana turned back to Tazuna, and her face immediately hardened, "Spill it," she ordered. Tazuna told Hana about Gato, how he was starving people, and how the bridge was the only way to stop the poverty. The part that really struck Hana though was when Tazuna said that the combined money of the village had paid for the mission. _The whole village could only pay for a low C-rank mission!_ Hana thought. Part of her really wanted to help the old man out, but a third of her team had just been injured, and who knew what type of other ninja Gato had hired. While she was silently debating the situation, an ANBU dropped from the trees.

"Hello Inuzaka-san," the ANBU said with a slight bow.

"Oh, Hello Cat-san, did the Hokage send you?" Hana asked curiously, _why would an ANBU be sent without me requesting reinforcements?_

"Yes," the ANBU lied, "I was tasked with watching you from a distance, but not interfering in anyway unless necessary."

Hana nodded her head in understanding; she looked over to the forest just in time to see the girls carrying Naruto's injured form.

"What is the extent of his injuries?" Hana asked.

"Naruto-san has several broken ribs, a broken foot and leg, other broken bones, and third degree burns across his body," Sai started, "Hello Cat-san, I haven't seen you in a long time."

"Hello Sai," the Anbu said in his deep voice.

Riku looked over the ANBU, and a feeling of trepidation swept over her, _he talks in that same weird way just like Sai. _

"You two know each other?" Sakura asked.

"Yes, Cat-san has been a friend for a long time," Sai lied.

"Cat-san, do you think it would be wise to continue the mission?" Hana asked, looking for another opinion on the matter.

"I would be able to assist you in your efforts, and I'm sure that Namikaze-san will be fine in a couple days, I looked over everyone's hospital records before I left, and despite suffering several severe injuries in the past, he has never been in a hospital for more than two days."

_It would be very helpful to have an ANBU help out, but what about Sasuke? He won't heal as fast as Naruto,_ Hana thought, _Maybe Sai can give him medical jutsu to speed up his healing…_

"We'll continue with the mission, but when the funds become available I expect an A-rank mission to be paid in full," Hana said to Tazuna. The old man nodded his head earnestly, and began to thank them for helping out his nation.

"How far is it to your home?" Hana asked Tazuna.

"Its two miles, and we have to cross a river, but transport can be easily arranged."

The Hana nodded and the group started back down the path towards Nami no Kuni. Cat brought up the rear of the group, and he sent a messenger bird back to the Hokage (Danzo). Sakura and Sai carried Sasuke, but Riku insisted on carrying Naruto by herself.

They arrived at Tazuna's house around three in the after noon, it was on the outskirts of town, so the group didn't get to see any of the poverty that plagued the land. The house was a modest two story house with three bedrooms, and one bathroom. The group walked up to the house, and Tazuna knocked on the door, "Tsunamis I'm home," the builder said.

They waited a minute until the door opened, and they were greeted by a pretty woman with black hair, _is that his wife!_ Sakura and Riku thought.

"Hi Dad," the dark haired woman said as she gave Tazuna a hug.

"Tsunamis, these are the ninja that came to help us out," Tazuna said as he gestured towards the group,_ their so young! _Tsunamis thought.

"Hello, and thank you for coming to help out the village," Tsunmis said as she led them inside of the house. The house had a traditional Japanese layout, but it had a western style dinning room table.

As soon as everyone was across the threshold, Tsunamis immediately turned to Riku, and Sakura, "the two boys can be put upstairs in the first bedroom on the right." Riku and Sakura nodded, and they took the boys upstairs. When they reached the bedroom Riku immediately deposited Naruto on the nearest bed as softly as she could, she loved him with all herheart, but he could be pretty damn heavy!

Sakura and Sai walked to the bed across the room, and very gently put Sasuke on it. Sakura looked down at Sasuke's face, her emotions were clearly playing across hers, she had tears streaming down her face, her pink hair was a mess, and she had smudges of dirt all across her body. _Please get better Sasuke-kun,_ she thought as she gently stroked his hair out of his face.

Riku made Naruto as comfortable as possible, she noticed that most of his burns had already healed, and his broken leg looked like it had been set. She didn't know about the healing factor of the fox, so she thought it must be the Namikaze bloodline. She gave him a quick kiss on his forehead, and exited the room. Sakura saw that Riku gave Naruto a kiss, and she was considering doing the same thing,_ but Hinata likes him, what type of friend would I be if I kissed Sasuke?_

She decided against it, if she was going to kiss him she would do it when he was awake. When Sakura arrived downstairs, Riku was in the kitchen helping Tsunamis prepare dinner, Hana and Tazuna were discussing a timetable for the completion of the bridge, but Sai and the ANBU were nowhere to be found.

"Where did Sai go?" Sakura asked to no one in particular, "He and Cat went to the bridge to check it out." Hana said. Sakura then just sat down and waited for dinner, she was exhausted, but she would stay by her Sasuke-kun through the night.

…

…

…

WITH SAI

Sai and the ANBU were walking on the bridge while conversing, "So you were sent by Danzo-sama to keep an eye on Naruto?"

"Yes," the ANBU responded, "I wasn't supposed to interfere unless absolutely necessary, I weighed the risk and benefits, and decided that Danzo-sama would be angrier with me if Namikaze-san and Uchiha-san were killed," the ANBU said. ANBU Cat had trained Sai when he was in the ROOT, Sai wasn't officially (in Danzo's books) in the ROOT anymore, but he still took orders from Danzo. The two were walking along when an unnaturally thick mist settled on the bridge, _that's odd, mist usually doesn't form in the evening,_ Cat thought. The two started walking back to the house, when an intense killer intent radiated from somewhere in the mist. The duo quickened their pace to get out of the mist, and back to the house.

Cat and Sai didn't speak about anything that happened on the bridge during dinner, Cat didn't eat his food, he ate outside where no one could see his face.

The group at the table discussed everything from everyone's personal lives to the mission and the bridge.

FLASH BACK END

"All of that took place yesterday," Hana said, "Are you healed enough to help protect Tazuna today?"

"Yah, I'm just a little sore," Naruto said, "I'll do a little stretching, oh, and is there a shirt I could borrow?" Naruto asked while scratching his head sheepishly.

Tsunamis and Hana both blushed when they looked at his naked torso, "I don't think I have anything that would fit you," Tsunamis said while blushing.

"Oh, I'll just steal one of Sasuke's," Naruto said with a small laugh. He then went back upstairs into the room, just in time to see Riku waking up. She yawned and stretched (Naruto gave a small blush when she stretched) she gave a small eep, and gave Naruto a bone crushing hug.

"You baka, why'd you get yourself blown up!" RIku asked when she let go of him. "I didn't mean to," Naruto said while scratching his head, "how was I supposed to know he had an HE tag primed to explode?"

Riku visibly paled when she heard HE,

_HE! He's lucky to be alive!'?_she gave him another hug, and even a kiss on his cheek, "Well, next time be more careful," she said into his ear. Naruto gave another blush when she let go, and he started looking through Sasuke's stuff for a shirt.

"Are you going to help us protect Tazuna today?" Riku asked while he was searching for a shirt. She hoped he would stay behind, and rest a longer.

"Yah, we're actually leaving in a couple minutes," Naruto said, "He forgot to pack a spare shirt to?" Naruto said in an exasperated tone.

"I like the view without a shirt," Riku said in a teasing tone.

"I bet you do," Naruto said in a slightly irritated tone. The only other shirt he had was a black t-shirt, but that would offer no protection, and it wouldn't keep him warm on the chilly morning. He reached into his bag and put it on. Naruto was now wearing all black, he had on the black t-shirt, and black cargo pants. While he was getting ready he had one thought on his mind, _how the heck did I pack a spare pants but not a shirt?_

Riku and Naruto exited the room a second later, and when they arrived downstairs Tazuna and Hana were waiting for them.

"Where's Sai?" Naruto asked.

"He and Cat already left for the bridge," Hana answered, "Lets go."

…

…

While they were walking towards the bridge, Naruto and Riku brought up the rear and they were conversing between themselves, Hana was asking Tazuna some questions.

"Have there been any attempts on your life?"

"No, I have had several threats, but nothing else."

"Ok, how long does the bridge have till completion?"

"Only a couple days, but I think Gato'll try to waste me before I finish."

Hana nodded in undestanding, "We'll do everything in our power to protect you."

Tazuna thanked her, and when they arrived at the bridge a man walked up to Tazuna. The man was dressed in nothing more than rags, his ribs were clearly visible, his sandy blonde hair was very dirty, and he walked with a small limp. "Tazuna, I've been doing some thinking, I don't think I should continue helping build the bridge."

"Daisuke," Tazuna pleaded with the man, "I've hired some ninja to protect us, we only have three days till completion!"

"Gato's men came to my house last night, they said if I don't stop, they'll rape my wife, and sell my kid to slavers," Daisuke stated.

"I'm sorry but I have to look after my family." Daisuke said as he walked away.

"Dammit, he was my best worker," Tazuna said to no one in particular.

"I'll help you out," Naruto said, and just before Riku and Hana could ask him what he was going to do, he used the familiar hand signs, and spawned three shadow clones. Turning to the clone Naruto said, "Listen to Tazuna, help him out in any way possible."

"Hai," all of the clones said and they walked up to Tazuna.

"The clones will do what ever you tell them to," Naruto told the drunk.

Tazuna thanked Naruto, and with the company of the clones, he started working on the bridge.

Nothing much happened for the first couple hours, there were only ten men beside from Tazuna, Hana, Sai, Cat, Riku, and Naruto. Naruto's shadow clones helped Tazuna out a lot, and they could get to many places that normal men couldn't.

When lunch time rolled around, most of the workers, went back to the village to find some lunch, Tsunamis had packed them a basket, and they all sat down and started to eat.

"So how much longer?" Riku asked.

Tazuna finished chewing on his sandwhich before answering, "About five days, give or take one."

"I thought you said that there was only a few days till completion," Naruto said in an accusing tone.

"Hehehe, I said that cause I wanted you guys to help me out," Tazuna said nervously, "You have no idea how much this bridge means to these people," Tazuna said.

"Gato has taken everything away from the wave, and with this bridge I can do my part to help things get back to normal," Tazuna siad with has personally raped many women that I knew before he killed them, he has personally killed many men including my surrogate son, if you come across the chance to kill that man, please make him suffer," Tazuna said quietly. After lunch, and before the men came back to work, Sai excused himself to start healing Sasuke, the Uchiha wouldn't be fully healed by the end of the mission, but he would be combat ready, and that was a huge improvement.

After Sai left, an unnaturally thick mist settled on the bridge. _It's the mist from yesterday,_ the ANBU thought, "everyone get into battle formation!" the ANBU ordered, he was a jonin in rank, so he was the commanding officer on the mission.

Naruto, Cat, and Hana to up a defensive formation, and Riku was forced to stand by Tazuna.

"Cat-senpai, do you know what this mist is?" Naruto asked.

"No, but if my hunch is correct, we could be in for a serious fight."

"Two genin, a chunin, and ANBU, this will be interesting," a voice from inside the mist.

Nothing happened for about a minute, anxiety could be clearly seen on Riku's face, Naruto controlled his facial expression a little better, but upon closer inspection, you could also see he was nervous.

After about a second, a huge wave of killer intent blasted the area where the group stood. Tazuna fainted from the killer intent, Naruto and Riku were deathly pale, Riku looked like she wanted to run, and Naruto's hand was slowly slinking its way to his kunai pouch.

"Don't worry comrades, no one is dying today except our enemy," Cat said in the most comforting voice a member of ROOT could muster. The small vocal assurance was all that Naruto and Riku needed, **use some of my killer intent.**

Naruto momentarily blinked in surprise, the fox hadn't talked to him since he was injured. _How? _**Just use some of your own, and you will automatically access mine.**

Naruto gave a slight nod to no one in particular, and flared his own KI in response. It was rather impressive for a genin, but after a millisecond, its potency increased ten-fold.

Zabuza was only 20 feet from the group, he could not be seen throught the mist, he had been throwing his voice to make him sound like he was somewhere else. Because he was so close to the group, the full blast of killer intent hit him head on.

Zabuza made a grave error, he underestimated his opponent; the strong KI was too much for even him, and he had to drop down to one knee, or pass out from the flood. The sound of Zabuza's knee hitting the ground, was all that Cat needed, he took off into the mist without saying anything to the group. They couldn't see where he went because of the thick mist, they couldn't even see five feet in front of them!

Two questions were going through Hana's mind right now, _where did Cat go? How does Naruto have so much KI?_

A few grunts, and the sound of clashing metal could be heard through the mist, Naruto grew tired of not being able to see anything and he sped through some hand signs.

Futon: wind flood! This jutsu was basically an enhanced version of wind stream, but it was a lot stronger. A constant stream of wind erupted from Narutos mouth, he spun around to try and disperse the mist. When the mist surrounding him he looked up over to his right, and saw Cat and a ninja with a really big sword, trading blows.

Cat had managed to evade the executioners blade thus far, and now that the mist had been blown away, he could see a whole lot better.

"Riku, get Tazuna off the bridge," Hana ordered, "Naruto, that's Zabuza Momochi, he was a member of the Swordsmen of the Mist before he went rogue, be careful."

"Hai," Naruto said as he drew a kunai and got ready to fight. Hana and Naruto waited for an opportunity to enter the battle, and the opportunity presented itself when Cat had to jump back from Zabuza.

Hana immediately charged in when she saw the opening, Naruto threw his kunai at Zabuza, hoping to distract him while Hana made her approach. Zabuza deflected the kunai effortlessly with his blade, and when Hana arrived, he immediately struck out to counter Hana.

Hana had to use every ounce of her flexibility to get out of the way of the huge sword, she dodged to the right, and quickly drew a kunai and tried to stab Zabuza by getting under his defence.

Hana didn't realize how fast Zabuza was however, and she narrowly avoided getting decapitated by Zabuza. Zabuza immediately went on the offensive, he gave a horizontal slash that Hana had to jump back from, he then gave a vertical slash that started from his feet and went higher than his head.

Hana wasn't fast enough to get away from the slash, but Naruto saw her in trouble, and countered: Futon: repeating wind bullet!

Zabuza was forced to stop his slash, and block the incoming bullets of air, while he was blocking Cat also ran through some had signs: Katon: phoenix fire jutsu!

Naruto wasn't surprised that Cat used fire, it was the most common element in Konoha, Cat seemed to have really good control of his element however, because the fireballs that he released were huge!

**I would expect nothing less from Konoha ANBU.**

_Why would you say that?_ Naruto asked, while he watched Hana, Cat, and Zabuza fought, Naruto knew he was outclassed in the fight without the Kyuubi's chakra.

**Konoha has the least active shinobi** **of all of the five great villages, Konoha has won every war it has been in thus far however. In other villages quantity is given a higher value than quality, and as thus Konoha has stricter measures for shinobi. To be an ANBU in Konoha, you have to be a jonin, and undergo a fierce psychological, and physical evaluation.**

_Wow,_ Naruto thought, Hana had suffered a shallow slash to her abdomen, it didn't bleed much, but it hurt like hell.

Cat was doing fairly well, he still had a lot of chakra, and he was making headway against Zabuza.

Zabuza was getting winded from holding off the two ninja, but he wasn't called the Demon of the Mist for nothing. He jumped over a leg sweep from Hana, he brought his elbow down, trying to elbow Hana in her head. Hana blocked the elbow with her hand, but because Zabuza had jumped into the air, all of his weight was on her arms. She wasn't prepared for the sudden weight that was put on her arms, and they buckled. Zabuza rolled over as he fell towards the ground, he quickly regained his feet and slashed out as Hana tried to regain her footing. She wasn't fast enough, and she suffered s slash from her right arm to her left thigh.

Hana groaned in pain as she started bleeding, she jumped back from Zabuza, and thanked Kami that Cat held the Zabuza back. She landed next to Naruto, and fell down, "Are you alright!" Naruto asked in a slightly panicked voice.

"Do I look ok baka!" Hana snapped at him, "Go help Cat while I try to stop the bleeding," Hana ordered.

Naruto knew there wasn't much he could do, but he do did best anyway.

Naruto did he familiar hand signs as he rushed towards Zabuza, twenty Naruto's descended on the swords man, while he was busy with Cat.

Zabuza could hold off Cat pretty well, but twenty more people added into the mix could be potentially problematic. Naruto stayed back from the melee with another clone and watched as Zabuza threw Cat away again, and decimated his clones.

_Well here goes nothing,_ Naruto thought. He timed it perfectly,

As soon as the final shadow clone was about to be dispersed, Naruto drew out an exploseive kunai, and henged into a very large shuriken. His clone picked him up and flung him at Zabuza.

_He's pretty straight forward,_ Zabuza thought, Cat was making his way back to the battle, Zabuza merely sidestepped the shuriken and charged at the clone he thought was Naruto. As soon as he past Zabuza, Naruto released the henge, pivoted in mid air, and flung the explosive kunai at Zabuza.

Zabuza's "6th sense" was the only thing thata temporarily saved him. He dodge to the left, and the kunai wizzed right past his arm. He realized to late however that their was an explosive note attached to it, he put his arms up to defend himself just as the kunai exploded.

The missing mist nin was blown backwards, and skidded across the bridge, he was dazed, but left unhurt for the most part. His ears would probably need healing after the battle.

Naruto didn't give Zabuza time to recover, he rushed at him with his last kunai. Naruto jumped in the air, and gave a downward strike that Zabuza dodged. Zabuza tried to counter but he was hit in the back by something really hot.

Cat smirked under his mask when he saw Zabuza get hit by his fireball. He had to give it to the kid, that was a pretty ingenious move.

Zabuza was blown forwards by the fireball, and he saw Naruto waiting for him. Naruto stabbed Zzabuza with his kunai right in the chest.

"Argghh," Zabuza groaned as he was stabbed. He looked up just in time to see Naruto brining his hand down to stab him again. Zabuza shifted his feet, and took out the smaller boys legs. Zabuza was bleeding pretty badly, he tried to finish off Naruto while they were both on the ground, Naruto kept dodging his slashes with the big blade, Zabuza was starting to fell very faint, it had only been a minute or so, but what ever the blonde kid stabbed, it had a lot of blood.

Zabuza stabbed at Naruto, but much to his dismay, Naruto just exploded in a puff of smoke. Zabuza looked back to where the real Naruto stood, and inwardly groaned when he saw the boy flashing through hand signs, Futon: wind bullet jutsu!

Wind bullet and repeating wind bullet were slightly different, repeating wind bullet released a repeating stream of smaller bursts of air, but wind bullet released two large burst of air. Wind bullet was used primarily on large groups of opponents, or immobile enemies.

Zabuza was hit head on by the blast.

He felt his ribs crack from the pressure he was blown back off the bridge, and into the woods on either side of the bridge, he looked up and saw the blonde kind, and the ANBU running towards him,

but before they arrived,

everything went

black.

* * *

><p><strong>some action for you fighting junkies, please review,<strong>

**please review!**

**check out the playstation Vita!**

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	7. Chapter 7

**here's chapter 7! hope you enjoy**

disclaimer: i don't own Naruto or PLayStation Vita

* * *

><p>From Naruto's point of view, it looked like the senbon needles appeared in Zabuza's neck. Cat and Hana saw them coming, but they were not in a position to do anything about it.<p>

The needles hit Zabuza's neck with a sharp piercing sound, and as soon as they hit his neck, Zabuza died. After a moment of silence, a hunter-nin dropped from the trees, "Thank you for weakening Zabuza, I have been tracking him for many weeks, but have been unable to apprehend him."

_Is that a guy or a girl?_ Naruto thought. The hunter-nin went over and grabbed Zabuza's arm, but before he could get away, Cat spoke up.

"Don't hunter-nins dispose of the body as soon as the kill is made?"

"Hunter-nins from Kirigakure no Sato have adopted a new policy in which the bodies of missing-nin are brought back to the village to be confirmed before disposal," Haku lied. "As you know, the Mist is in a civil war, and it would be no surprise if an announcement to the other villages was not made."

All Cat could do was nod, as Haku disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

**That all seemed rather fishy,** the Kyuubi mused.

_I know…do you think we'll come across Zabuza again?_

**Yah probably, we could do some training to prepare for when they do come back.**

Naruto and Cat started walking back towards where Hana stood, the slashes across her body were still bleeding, but not as much as they were before. Riku and Tazuna had come back onto the bridge after the battle had finished, Riku was giving Hana some first-aid, while Tazuna was having a drink to calm his nerves.

When Naruto and Cat joined back up, all attention turned to them.

"What do you think is going to happen now Cat-senpai?" Riku asked as she finished tending to Hana.

"I don't know," Cat said in his emotionless voice, "I would suggest you genin train in your spare time until the bridge is completed. I have no doubt Gato will try to attack the bridge again."

Riku and Naruto nodded, "Lets get back to the house, Tsunami should have some stuff to help out with the bleeding," Tazuna said.

The group walked back towards the house, they walked at a slightly slower pace so that Hana could keep up. Although Riku and Naruto offered her a helping hand, she kindly declined saying that she could manage on her own.

"Hey Naruto, you wanna spar when we get back?" Riku asked.

"Sure, but I want to talk to Sasuke first," Naruto said.

"Oh, ok," Riku responded.

When they arrived back at the house, Tsunami immediately led Hana to the couch, where she and Riku finished wrapping her cuts.

"Excuse me Tsunami-san, is Sasuke awake?" Naruto asked while Tsunamis finished putting on the final bandage, "Yes, he's awake but resting."

Naruto thanked her and walked up the stairs to the room that Sasuke was in; he stepped into the room, and saw Sakura fussing over Sasuke, while Sasuke was trying to play his Vita.

"You should really be resting right now Sasuke-kun," Sakura said.

"I am resting," Sasuke said in an annoyed voice while not looking up from his device.

"Why do you and Naruto insist on playing those dumb games," Sakura said in an equally annoyed tone,_ why are boys so stubborn!_

Naruto knew that Sasuke didn't like people insulting his favorite past time, and given the physical state of his body, he also probably had a short temper.

"Sakura, do you mind if I talk to Sasuke?" Naruto said, interrupting the impending argument.

"Yes, but don't keep him up to long, Sasuke needs to sleep," Sakura said as she walked out of the room. As soon as Sakura disappeared through the doorway, Sasuke gave her the middle finger, while not looking up from his game.

"Hehehe," Naruto chuckled as he sat down next to Sasuke, "so what have you been up to today?"

"Been trying to get some gaming in, but between Tsunami and Sakura, I haven't had a lot of time," Sasuke said as he turned off his PSV.

Naruto slowly nodded in understanding, "what about you," Sasuke asked him.

"Zabuza attacked us on the bridge today," Naruto said as he slouched down in the chair.

"Who?" Sasuke asked.

"Zabuza, he was some swordsman from Kiri, he was pretty strong but we beat him," Naruto said as he lounged in the chair.

"Did you guys kill him?"

"I don't know, we injured him, but a hunter-nin came and took him away."

"OK, but why don't you think you killed him," Sasuke asked, not really understanding what Naruto was saying.

"Cat-senpai said that Hunter-nin dispose of the body as soon as the kill is made."

"OH ok," Sasuke said, "tonight, do you think we could go train?" Sasuike asked in a hushed tone.

"Sasuke Uchiha!" Naruto said in an appalled voice,

"do you think you'll manage?" he finished in an equally hushed tone.

"Yah, I'll be fine, I only really want to work on chakra control, but I need to get a rubber ball," Sasuke said.

"Is that for the big ball?" Naruto said in the same hushed voice. Sasuke nodded in confirmation, "We could go into town and see if we could buy one," the avenger said.

"I told Riku I would spar with her today, so we could go afterwards," Naruto stated.

"Cool," Sasue said in a disinterested tone, "You know she's got a crush on you, I heard her and Sakura talking about it," Sasuke said.

"You know, I couldn't tell," Naruto said in a sarcastic tone.

"Jerk…" Sasuke muttered.

"What about you and Hinata?" Naruto said in a teasing voice. Sasuke's demeanor changed rather quickly, he went from having a care free attitude, to a determined one.

"What about me and Hinata?" Sasuke asked in a slightly testy tone.

"Chill out man," Naruto said as he waved his hand in a placating manner, "Seriously though, if you're going to make a move, you gotta make one quickly, she's the freaking heiress after all, and she must have suitors lining up for a chance to have her hand in marriage."

"I know," Sasuke said, "I'll talk to her after the mission."

"You've been saying that since before we graduated ," Naruto said with a smirk.

"Well this time I actually have the courage," Sasuke said in an argumentative tone.

"If only I had a ryo for every time I…" Naruto began.

"Shut up and go spar you bastard!" Sasuke said in a fake, angrily loud voice, as he started throwing all sorts of stuff at Naruto.

"See you later Sasuke-chan!" Naruto said as he ran out of the room dodging the crap that Sasuke was throwing at him.

When he arrived down stairs, it appeared as if Sakura was waiting for him.

"What did you do to Sasuke-kun?" she asked in that commanding voice.

"I was only having some fun with Sasuke-chan, don't worry though, he's resting," Naruto said. His answer seemed to appease Sakura (not that he cared) and he proceeded into the living room. Hana was taking a nap on the couch, Tazuna was going over some blue prints, Sai and Cat were nowhere to be found.

He peered into the kitchen and saw Tsunami making dinner.

"Hello Naruto," she said when she saw him looking in the kitchen.

"Hello Tsunami-san, do you know where Riku is?" Naruto asked.

"Riku is outside at the back of the house," Tsunami said while chopping p some onions.

Naruto thanked her, and proceeded to walk out of the house in search of Riku. When he walked outside, he took a look at all of the scenery, or lack of scenery around him. There was a vegetable garden that looked like the vegetables had some sort of disease, ther was little, to know grass in the front or back of the house. The house itself was still in prime condition, no doubt because Tazuna was a builder.

In the back of the house, about 50 feet behind the house, the edge of a forest started and swept back for an unknown distance. At the edge of the clearing, Riku sat in a meditative pose.

When she heard Naruto approach, Riku beamed at him when she looked up.

"Ready to get your butt kicked?" Riku asked in a teasing manner.

"You wish," Naruto responded cheekily.

"Before we fight," Riku started, "I have to know if you were injured in any way during the fight with Zabuza."

"I only used some chakra, but beside that I'm fine," Naruto answered, "so what are the rules of our little spar?"

"We can use jutsu, but nothing to serious or dangerous," Riku stated, she held up her arm for Naruto to help her up, and when they were up, they walked into the forest to find a clearing.

While they were walking, Naruto asked Riku a question, "Have you ever been to Suna?"

She didn't miss her stride and answered, "I went a few times when I was younger, but I haven't gone in a while."

When she had finished answering Riku asked Naruto a question, "What is your ultimate goal in being a shinobi?"

Naruto actually stopped walking when he heard the question, _What is my ultimate goal?_

"I don't really know, I always wanted to be Hokage, but there are some things I have to do before then."

The Kyuubi gave a snort in agreement, "I want to protect Konoha from its enemies, whether they're outside its walls, or inside." I'm not sure if you realize, but the Leaf is very corrupted, and I wanted to do something about it."

Riku looked over at Naruto, he had started walking again, and she was pondering his answer, "What are the things that you have to take care of?"

"I can't tell," was Naruto's curt reply.

"Oh, I didn't mean to pry," Riku said.

"Its okay, I will probably have to tell you some of the things in the next couple years, but until then, I see no reason to make any of my comrades worry."

Riku nodded in understanding, and they entered a clearing.

Naruto went to the far side of the clearing, and took up a tiger stance. Taijutsu and genjutsu were things he was rather lacking in, but he made up for it with strong ninjutsu, and his accuracy with a kunai.

Riku remained where she stood, she excelled in Taijutsu, she was also rather proficient with genjutsu, but her main strength was kenjutsu.

Naruto pulled out a kunai, and waited for Riku to make the first move. He had tied Sasuke for rookie of the year. When their final grade were made known, it was decided that the boys would spar to see who was ROTY.

Naruto and Sasuke refused to spar, they were quite content being tied for first.

Riku, on the other hand, had been a genin for a year. She was a year older than Naruto, she was very competitive, and she hated losing to ANYBODY.

She had already been on a few C-rank missions, she had her share of near death experiences, she had promised Manami and her sensei that she would get stronger. When her and Manami's teammate died, it had left her in a mess. Kenshi was like an older brother to her, and when he died, she really questioned if she wanted to remain a ninja. She locked herself in her room for a week, and after she emerged, she was more determined than ever before to be strong.

Riku settled into her kenjutsu stance with her ninja-to drawn, waiting to see what Naruto would do.

They waited for thirty second before simultaneously charging at one another.

Riku charged at Naruto with her sword held at her side. When the blonde came in range, the brunette gave a fierce horizontal slash. Naruto blocked the horizontal, and narrowly dodged the vertical slash that Riku sent his way.

He jumped back from the black haired girl, but Riku didn't give him any chance to rest. She pressed the attack, and sent slash after slash his way.

Naruto blocked, and dodged most of the strikes, a few got him on his torso, but they were light cuts, and they healed quickly.

_I can't keep fighting like this! _Naruto thought, he ducked under a slash that could have decapitated him, and he got a free shot a Riku's ribs. When his fist connected with her rib, Naruto poured chakra into his legs, and jumped into one of the trees surrounding the clearing.

_Damn it! He got away, _Riku thought, she saw which tree he had landed in, but at this range she was at a disadvantage.

_I need to even the playing field,_ Riku mused, she started speeding through hand signs.

Naruto saw the hand signs, and immediately recalled them, _oh crap!_

Futon: wind slash jutsu!

Riku gave several long slashes at the air, and where her blade had been seconds before, long slashes in the air appeared and sped towards where Naruto hid.

He barely had time to jump out of the tree before it was pulverized into oblivion. Naruto had to keep jumping because Riku kept slashing at the air.

It appeared that Riku could keep the jutsu up for an undisclosed amount of time.

He landed on a tree branch, and before Riku could send a slash his way, Naruto sped through the familiar hand signs.

Shadow clone Jutsu!

He created twenty clones, and had five of them charge at Riku, while the others waited for their orders.

Riku was about to send another slash at the tree she heard Naruto land in, but after a few weird sounds, five identical copies of Naruto burst from the trees. Two of them were slinging kunai and shruiken at her, while one of them was holding back, and the two others charged head on. She deflected all of the kunai, and jumped into the air, she came down on one of the clones. The clone was not prepared for the sudden weight put on it, so it fell to the ground with Riku on top of it. Riku quickly rolled off of the clone, and before it could get its footing back back under itself, Riku swept its feet out, and mercilessly stabbed it in the chest.

Naruto watched slaughter of his clones in the clearing, and visibly paled, _remind me never to make her mad._

**Agreed…** the Kyuubi said stoicly.

After she dispelled the first clone, Riku turned to the second one that had a kunai drawn, she noticed that the two that had flung kunai at her were also charging her, but the one in the back was hanging back.

The clone with the kunai waited till his comrades joined him, to charge.

She sheathed her sword, and sped through some hand signs, Futon: wind storm!

From her hands fierce winds erupted, the winds basically destroyed everything in her path. Two of the clones had enough time to get out of the way, but the third was not as fortunate. When the wind had destroyed the clone, it continued on to where Naruto his in the tree.

"Crap!" he yelled as her jumped out of the tree into the clearing, he looked behind him, and watched in morbid fascination as the tree he was in only seconds before, was turned into mulch.

Now that he was in the clearing, Naruto decided it was time to finish the spar. He sent his two clones forward, the ones that stayed behind were killed in Riku's jutsu, but Naruto held back with his other clone.

Riku was getting rather tired, and between the wind slash, and the wind storm she had used a lot of chakra, _I need to finish this._

She drew her ninja-to, and charged at the two clones charging her. She sent a diagonal slash at the first one, it had to block it with a kunai. She then pivoted very rapidly, and caught the other clone off guard, she stabbed with her blade, dispersing the clone, and then she pivoted again, and gave a vertical slash with her sword.

The clone dodged to the right, and lunged at Riku trying to stab her, the clone had left itself open to an attack, and as soon as Riku dodged his desperate lunge, it was already over.

Riku effortlessly dispelled the clone, and turned to face Naruto and the other clone.

She resumed her kenjutsu post, and waited. Naruto started going through hand signs, and the clone to his right charged Riku.

_When will he learn?_ Riku thought as she intercepted the clone. She was mindful that Naruto was speeding through hand signs, but there wasn't much she could do about that. She charged at the clone, and swung her sword, trying to disperse it quickly.

The clone dodged the attack, and tried to sweep the legs out from under Riku. The brunette jumped over the leg sweep, and tried to do a downward slash on the clone as she descended from her jump. In the blink of an eye, the clone drew a kunai and blocked Riku's attack.

The clone actually pushed Riku back, and because she put all of her weight into the attack, she was pushed off balance. In a last ditch effort to dispell the clone, Riku grabbed onto his arm as she fell, dragging the clone down with her and ran him through with her sword.

She picked herself up from the fall, and faced Naruto. Naruto had his jutsu ready, but he was waiting till the clone was dispelled before he used it.

Futon: wind bullet jutsu!

Five big burst of air erupted from Naruto's mouth, and sped towards Riku.

The brunette slashed through the first three bullets of air, and was nearly overwhelmed by the others, she had a split second chance to dodge the two remaining bullets, and after they had crashed into a tree behind her, she charged at Naruto. Naruto threw kunai at Riku as she dodged, he threw them in a pattern that forced Riku to flank him from his left, and he was a lefty.

When she was in range, Naruto kicked out with his left foot, forcing Riku to dodge to the right. He then gave a right jab at her head that she ducked under, but before she could counter, Naruto pivoted, and kicked her hard in the ribs with his left foot.

She skidded across the ground, she didn't make any grimacing sounds, but you could tell by her facial expressions that she was in pain. Her ribs weren't broken, but they were definitely bruised.

Riku held up her hand and said, "I yield."

Naruto looked at her for a second to see if she was lying, seeing his skepticism Riku continued, "I don't think it would be smart to continue sparring, at this point in the mission we can't afford to have anymore injuries."

"Oh ok," Naruto said, "Did I break anything with that kick?"

"No," Riku said with a grimace, "You sure as hell bruised something though."

"Sorry about that," Naruto said as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Thanks for the spar though, I rather enjoyed it," Riku said as they exited the clearing and started walking back towards the house.

"If we continued, who would have won?" Naruto asked with a smirk, "I'm pretty sure I would have won," he said.

Riku looked at him with a smirk of her own, "If we continued I would've kicked your butt."

"Yah, ok whatever, I could've broken your ribs with that kick."

"But you didn't, and I had some pretty sick stuff planned for you," Riku said.

"Right," Naruto said in a disbelieving tone, "You were running low on chakra, and I had barely used any."

It was at that moment that Riku decided to "trip" and "hurt" her ankle.

"Dang it!" she yelled as she "fell" down. Naruto rolled his eyes in response.

"Naruto-kun, could you help me up? I think I twisted my ankle," Riku asked in an overly sweet voice.

Instead of giving her the satisfaction of carrying her back to the house, Naruto created a shadow clone, and had it put up Riku bridal style.

While the clone was walking towards her, Riku covertly drew out a kunai. When the clone was in the process of picking her up, she stabbed it in the arm dispersing it in the process. She rolled over to look at Naruto with a smug look.

"I'll disperse every clone you send my way, so why don't you pick me up yourself N-a-r-u-t-o-kun?" Riku asked in a seductive voice.

Naruto just rolled his eyes and said, "I could knock you unconscious, then have my clones carry you."

"You wouldn't harm an injured, and defencless girl would you?" Riku asked in a fake appalled voice.

"I doubt you're defencless Riku," Naruto said.

"Cant you just pick me up!" Riku said in an exasperated tone.

"Why should I?" Naruto asked smugly, "for me to carry you, you have to say that I won the spar."

Riku HATED to lose, no matter what the situation, but she could stomach this loss because she would get something out of it, "Naruto-kun, you won the spar," Riku stated, she had to hold down the bile that tried to get free from saying that statement. Naruto smugly nodded his head, and he kept the smug look on his face when he pick Riku up.

Riku was blushing as she was being picked up, the only thing that could make this moment perfect was if Naruto didn't have that dumb smug look on his face. To annoy Naruto to the fullest extent, Riku snuggled into his chest and let out a contented sigh.

Naruto rolled his eyes again as they walked back towards the house.

…

…

…

The sight of Naruto carrying Riku caused several different reactions from the inhabitants of the house. Tazuna took one look at Riku, saw her contented smile despite the fact she was "hurt", then he looked at Naruto sympathetically,

_poor kid, doesn't stand a chance…_

Tsunami saw the duo, and gave Riku a covert thumbs up, when Riku winked at her.

Sakura looked at the duo with jealousy clearly evident on her face, _I wish Sasuke-kun would carry me._

Hana saw Naruto carrying her and decided to tease the teens, "I didn't realize the spar would get so _physical_."

Both teens blushed at Hana's statement, but neither of them said anything. Naruto walked over to the nearest chair, and abruptly deposited Riku in it.

"Oww, you don't have to be so rough," Riku whined.

"Oh sorry, I didn't want to "hurt" your ankle," Naruto quipped.

Riku didn't say anything, all she did was give him a fake glare. Naruto turned back to Tsunami, and he noticed the amused smile on her face.

"Excuse me Tsunami-san, is Sasuke upstairs?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, don't spend to much time up there though, he needs to rest," Tsunami said sternly. Naruto thanked her and ran upstairs. When he neared the room that Sasuke was in, he heard some frantic scurrying. He paused in the doorway, and watched as Sasuke "slept" in his bed.

"You know, for being a ninja, your stealth sucks," Naruto said as he walked into the room.

"Oh its you," Sasuke said in a relieved tone, "I thought you were Sakura, between Sakura and Tsunami, I can barely go to the bathroom without being watched."

Naruto gave a laugh at his friends conundrum, "at least you can play video games right?" Naruto asked, trying to make light of the situation.

"They won't even let me play my Vita!" Sasuke said incredulously, "When Tsunami walked in and saw me playing it, she gave me a glare that made my crawl, I thought she was gonna break my PSV!"

"Damn dude, that's rough," Naruto muttered.

"So how are we gonna get out of the house?" Sasuke asked in a low voice, his sense of adventure tingling.

Naruto gave a mischievous smile, and leaned in closer to Sasuke, "I was working on this plan…."

…

…

…

Down stairs Riku and Sakura were talking about how Riku had gotten Naruto to carry her, Tsunami was watching TV while waiting for dinner to finish baking. Hana was resting on the couch while Tazuna was going over some blue prints, with a bottle of sake.

Everyone was consumed in there activities, that they almost missed Naruto walking out of the house.

"Hey Naruto, where are you going?" Sakura asked.

_Crap!_ Naruto thought as he turned around to answer Sakura's question, "I'm going to go meditate," Naruto lied, "it helps with the Kyuubi," Naruto said when he saw the females giving him a disbelieving look.

When he mentioned the Kyuubi, everyone stopped questioning him, "I'll be back for dinner," Naruto said as he exited the house. As soon as he was out side the door he created a shadow clone, and ordered it to sit down with its eyes closed, by the edge of the clearing.

Naruto then jumped into the trees as quickly as he could, and when he was in the tree he took out a scroll and wiped some blood on it, _I hope this works…_

When he wiped the blood on it, Sasuke popped it out; Naruto gave a sigh of relief when he saw his friend.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure that would work…" Naruto said.

Sasuke had his back to him, but when he heard Naruto's comment, he turned to look at him with a fierce glare.

"What don't you mean you didn't think it would work!" Sasuke said in a menacing, loud voice.

"Settle down," Naruto said while waving his hand in a placating manner, "it worked right? its not healthy to dwell on what ifs."

"I oughta throttle you," Sasuke said as they started jumping through the trees on the way towards town.

…

….

…

"So Riku-chan, how did you get Naruto to carry you?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, that was just my seductive skill," Riku said nonchalantly, "I'd be careful if you try it to Sasuke, he's not as nice as Naruto is."

"Yes he is!" Sakura said defending her crush.

Riku, who was sitting at the table across from Sakura, looked her in the eye, "Sakura, if you really think that Sasuke is nicer than Naruto, you are a biased fan-girl. If you want Sasuke to notice you, you have to differentiate yourself from all the other girls."

"How would I do that?" Sakura asked her older sister figure.

"Well, from my experiences, most fan-girls are relatively weak; I think the best way to get his attention, would be getting stronger."

Sakura was about to protest, but Riku cut her off, "if Sasuke wanted a girly-girl, he has a whole village to chose from. The only person from your graduating class that trains really hard is the Hyuuga girl, and from what you've told me, Sasuke, Naruto-kun, and the Hyuuga are very close friends."

Sakura slightly paled when Riku mentioned Hinata, _I never came close to beating her in any spars._ Sakura nodded her head in understanding, it would be rough, but if she got Sasuke's attention it would be worth it all.

…

…

…

Naruto and Sasuke were walking through the city. Both boys had pity clearly written on their faces. The orphaned children played in the muck in the allies. Prostitutes stood on street corners, trying to do anything to earn money. The one place that seemed to get a lot of business was the local bar and pub. Most of the building were rundown, empty, or already collapsed. Rough groups of men stood at the entrance to brothels, bars, and other buildings, they all glared at Naruto and Sasuke as they walked by.

"Dude, I knew they were poor, but this is ridiculus," Sasuke whispered to Naruto.

"I know right, it makes me want to finish the bridge even more," Naruto said as he watched a small, little boy wearing rags, playing with a stick.

"Lets get this ball and get out of here, I don't like the look those guys are giving us," Sasuke said in a low voice.

Naruto looked at a group of men in front of a brothel they were passing, it was a group of five men, two of them had scimitars, one of them had a katana, and the other two looked like they could kill with one punch. The men were looking at them menacingly, Naruto and Sasuke didn't blink as they glared back at the group, but they continued on looking for a store that sold rubber balls.

They walked for ten minutes until they came across a toy store. The duo walked inside, and the scurrying of the cashier could be heard. The man came from somewhere in the back of the store. When he saw they two boys he cried out, "Please, I'll have the money tomorrow! Give me one more day please!" the man pleaded. Naruto looked at Sasuke with a raised eyebrow, "We're not here to collect any money, we need to buy a rubber ball," Sasuke said. The man looked like he didn't believe them at first, but when the prospect of actually making a sale dawned on him, his whole countenence changed.

"Right this way," the man said in an excited voice.

After they had picked out a small rubber ball, the cashier led them back to the cash register to ring them up.

"That'll be three ryo," the man said.

The boys looked at him in shock, "That's it! Only three ryo?"

The man nodded his head, but Naruto wasn't having any of that, "we'll give you ten ryo, its not like we need the money anyway." the man looked at them and started thanking them profusely. Sasuke told the man how rich he and Naruto were, and that is was an honor helping out the city. The two boys told him about their mission, but they didn't tell him where they stayed.

Unknown to the two boys, the rough group of men were standing outside, their collective eyes lit up at the mention of all the money the two teens claimed to have.

"Hey boss, if we waste those to boys, and take their money, we could leave this God-forsaken city, and not have to work for Gato anymore," one of the men said.

A man who was easily over six and a half feet tall nodded in response, then spoke in a deep voice, "I haven't seen them around town, so they must be staying on the outskirts, as soon as they exit down town we'll kill 'em."

The two boys exited the store and started walking down the street on the way back to the house.

"So how was your spar with Riku?" Sasuke asked.

"I beat her, but I had to carry her back to the house because she "hurt" her ankle," Naruto said.

"HAHA," Sasuke laughed, "you actually carried her, I bet she was happy."

"Yah, well I beat her, and you know how competitive she is, she admitted I beat her rather quickly when I was carrying her."

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if she had that planned out," Sasuke mused aloud.

"I know right, girls are such a pain," Naruto complained. Sasuke nodded his head in agreement.

The two boys continued their conversation, oblivious to the fact that they were being followed.

As soon as the two boys exited down town, the men attacked. The two men with scimitars rushed at them, while the leader of the group, another man, and the man with the katana held back.

The boys acute hearing alerted them to the charging thugs, and they turned to see the two men with the swords charging them.

Thinking quick, Sasuke drew out a shuriken and kunai, he threw the shuriken at the man that was charging him, and rushed in with the kunai whike the shuriken was still in the air. The thug blocked the shuriken, and engaged Sasuke in battle. It wasn't much of a contest, the man wasn't a ninja. Sasuke charged at him, and jumped over him. The man swung his sword trying to cut Sasuke while he was in the air. Sasuke narrowly avoided he slash sent his way, and when he landed behind the thug, he cut the man's right Achilles tendon before he could turn around.

"Damnit!" the man yelled as he turned around, but Sasuke was too quick, and he rolled underneath the man, and gave him a chop to the back of the neck, knocking him unconscious.

Naruto also didn't have much difficulty with his target. He waited for the thug to approach him then he struck out. The thug tried to cleave Naruto in half with a horizontal slash, Naruto merrily jumped over the blade, and kicked the man in his head with his left foot. The kick dazed the man for a split second, and that was all that Naruto needed. When he landed from his jump Naruto gave the man two right hooks, and three left jabs before the man could blink.

The leader of the thieves watched as the first two thugs were dispatched easily, that was when he decided to overwhelm the two boys. Thee man with the katana, and the to bare-fisted delinquents rushed Naruto and Sasuke.

After he dispatched his opponent, Naruto and Sasuke simultaneously looked at the incoming trio, _three against one, time to even the odds._

Naruto went through his favorite hand signs, and when he was done three identical clones stood ready to fight.

Sasuke also went through the hand signs, but he only created one clone.

The incoming trio actually used a good formation, but this was disrupted when Sasue yelled out: Katon: fire ball jutsu!

The jutsu caused the men to break formation. The man with a katana dodged to the right, and was engaged by Sasuke, one of the bare-fisted men dodged to the left, and was intercepted by two of Naruto's clones, the leader of the group jumped over the fireball, and was met mid-air by Naruto, Sasuke's clone, and another one of Naruto's clones.

The bare-fisted thug that attacked Sasuke was at a severe disadvantage, Sasuke was a ninja, he was not, Sasuke actually knew what he was doing, he did not, Sasuke also had a drawn kunai, the thug had a katana and didn't know what to do with it.

Sasuke ducked under a wild slash that was sent his way, he coutered by stabbing the man in the ribs. It wasn't a vital hit, but it would bleed and could become fatal if untreated. The thug swore when he was stabbed, but Sasuke wasn't done yet; he left the kunai imbedded in the guys ribs, and he gave the man a leg sweep. The man fell to the ground, and Sasuke ended the fight by kicking him in the head.

The bare-fisted man that rushed at Naruto must have received ninja training at some point in his life, _he IS the leader of the group,_ Naruto mused. Naruto charged the man, and gave a flying kick to the guys chest. The man dodged however, and let Naruto sail by. Naruto hit the ground from his jump, and rolled around to face his opponent. When Naruto looked up, he noticed the man charging him, the man sent a left hook that Naruto dodged, and followed up with a kick from his right leg. Naruto grabbed the man's foot before it could hit him, Naruto looked into the man's eyes, as he held his foot, for a millisecond you could see the fear in the thug's eyes, before it switched back to a hardened gaze as if he already accepted with his predicament.

Naruto gave the foot a sharp twist which caused a sickening 'pop' to be heard, the man cried out in pain but was quickly silenced when Naruto punched him in the face.

Naruto looked up and saw that the shadow clones had dealt with their target, and Sasuke looked ok.

"You alright Naruto?" Sasuke asked, as he held his red rubber ball.

"Yah, I'm good, lets get back or else we'll be late for dinner," Naruto stated. They jumped up into the trees, and started the short trek towards home.

When they reached the clearing behind the house, Naruto noticed that his shadow clone was no longer "meditating" there.

_that's weird, I didn't fell it dispel,_ Naruto pondered.

Naruto resealed Sasuke into the scroll after arguing with him for a few seconds.

Naruto then jumped out of the tree and knocked on the front door.

He only had to wait a second before Riku answered the door looking very confused.

"Who are you?" Riku asked.

"What do you mean, who are you? I'm Naruto," the blonde stated.

"Then who is this? Riku said as she pointed to Naruto's shadow clone that was seated at the dinning room tabled, greedily eating food.

"Oh, I'm a shadow clone, that's the real Naruto," Naruto lied, he put his hands behind his back, and tried a jutsu he only tried twice before

Substitution.

He did the hand signs, closed his eyes, and gave a silent prayer to Kami. He muttered the jutsu under his breathe.

When he opened his eyes, he was seated next to Tazuna at the table, he looked to the doorway, and saw Riku talking to his clone.

"You can dispil the clone Riku," Naruto told her.

The clone looked at Naruto for a split second before Riku punched it in the face.

When she returned to the table, Sakura asked, "Where is Sasuke-kun?"

Thinking quickly, Naruto answered, "I'll go get him."

He walked up the stairs and entered the room where they slept, and summoned Sasuke out of the scroll.

"Play it cool," Naruto told him, the two descended the stairs, and began to converse with everyone like nothing happened.

…

…

…

It was about twelve in the morning when Naruto woke up Sasuke to go train.

"Five more minutes…," Sasuke muttered while Naruto tried to wake him up.

"Sasuke, we need to go train!" Naruto said in a course whisper.

The word 'train' snapped Sasuke awake, "Lets go," He whispered as he got out of bed. The two had to be very quiet because Sakura insisted on sleeping in the chair next to Sasuke's bed while he healed, and Riku slept in the bed that Naruto slept in the night before.

The duo sneaked downstairs, and saw Hana sleeping on the couch, and Sai sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. Naruto knew how inquisitive Sai could be, so he snuck over to where he slept, took out a hanker chief, took out a dripper of chloroform, and put some on the hanky. Naruto put it over Sai's face, and after a few seconds, his breathing became deeper.

Sasuke and Naruto exited the house through the back yard, and entered the woods to train.

…

…

…

It was two hours since the boys had started training, due to his injuries Sasuke was rather tired, and bid Naruto good night before returning to the house.

_I'll go back after a little bit,_ Naruto told himself.

He climbed up a tree using charka, and started sparring with a shadow clone on the tree. The spar went well for the first two minutes, Naruto found out that if he poured chakra into the clone, the clone could withstand more than one hit. The spar ended however when Naruto accidentally poured to much charka into his feet, and was blown of the tree. It didn't worry him that he was falling, but on the way down his head hit a tree branch

And everything went black.

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><p><strong>review! Review! REVIEW! REVIEW!<strong>

**please review leave comments, tell me how i can get better! ttfl**


	8. Chapter 8

**heres chapter 8 hope you all enjoy**

i dont own Naruto or playstation vita

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><p>"Shinboi-san, wake up."<p>

_What?_

_Who's that?_

"Wake up," the voice said a little louder.

Naruto felt someone gently nudge him, but he didn't open his eyes yet.

"Shinobi-san, wake up," the voice repeated again. The voice was soft, and sounded very kind; the voice was definitely feminine, and it was as beautiful and crisp as a crystal lake. Naruto groggily opened his eyes, and he was met by the sight of a beautiful brunette in a pink kimono.

"Good morning Shinobi-san," the girl said in a chipper voice, "you shouldn't sleep outside, you might catch a cold."

Naruto looked around the clearing where he lay, and the events of the early morning training came roaring back to his memory, _they didn't even check up on me?_

Naruto remembered the brunette sitting next to where he lay and said, "Thank you for waking me Miss…?"

"Haku," the girl said.

"Thank you for waking me Miss Haku, my name is Naruto Namikaze," Naruto said as he held out his hand for a handshake. Haku knew the boy was from the squad the had fought Zabuza,

She considered killing him, but quickly dismissed the thought from her mind when she noticed how peaceful he looked as he slept. She was slightly taken back when she heard his last name.

_Namikaze? Why does that sound familiar…_

Haku shook Naruto's hand with a firm grip, "Nice to meet you Naruto-san."

"Nice to meet you to Haku-san," Naruto said, "If I may ask, what are you doing in the woods all by yourself?" Naruto asked while giving Haku an appraising look, "Yesterday, me and my friend were attacked not far from here."

"Really? Did you get hurt?" Haku asked.

"No, but it would be a shame if you did," Naruto commented, "The only reason we weren't hurt is because we're ninja."

"I could tell from your attire that you were a ninja," Haku stated, "Are you a strong ninja?" Haku asked, trying to get any information from the boy.

"Not really," Naruto started in a disappointed voice, "I graduated from the academy in Konoha a few weeks ago, and I've come along way since then, but I'm still relatively week. I need to become strong so I can protect my home, my friends, and defeat someone very powerful."

Naruto noticed Haku's interest seemed to have spiked when he mentioned his friends, "You don't have any family?" Haku asked.

Naruto was taken back by Haku's question, _she probably doesn't know who the Namikaze's were._

"No, they died when I was young," Naruto said in a quiet voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Haku said quietly.

Trying to get the conversation back on a pleasant note Naruto asked again, "So what are you doing out here?"

"I'm collecting medicinal herbs for a sick family member," Haku said as she motioned towards her basket, which contained a good amount of herbs and flowers.

Naruto nodded in understanding when Haku mentioned to her basket, "Sorry for holding you back," Naruto said as he got up from the ground; the headache he got when he stood up would have caused a lesser man to pass out.

_Yo! Fox, what gives?_

**It's only a minor headache, to regular people it is a common occurrence.**

**It feels so painful because you've never experienced one before.**

_But can't you heal it?_

**Yes, but I see no reason to, this is a growing experience for you, you should become familiar with different types of pain so if you come in contact with them, they wont hinder your fighting ability.**

After the fox gave his little speech, he forcibly cut the communication.

Haku was about to tell Naruto it was ok, and that he wasn't slowing her down, but when he stood up, she noticed that for a split second, his beautiful magenta eyes switched to blood red.

"I-its ok Naruto," Haku said, slightly disturbed at what she saw.

_What were those eyes?_

Naruto then turned to face Haku, "Well, I really need to get back to the house before I get in trouble, it was nice meeting you Haku, perhaps we'll see each other around town."

"Perhaps," Haku said as she walked in the direction opposite of where Naruto was walking.

_I only learned his name._

Naruto walked through the forest at a leisurely pace, he could always tell them that he was training, and that wouldn't be a lie.

He came to the end of the woods in the back of the house, and calmly proceeded to the front door.

He raised his right hand, and knocked on the door. In the blink of the eye, Riku answered the door, and gave Naruto a bone-crushing hug.

"What were you doing! Do you know what time it is! Are you hurt!"

All of the questions were asked so rapidly, it was a wonder that Riku didn't get tongue-tied.

"R-Riku, I think y-you're g-gonna break s-something," Naruto wheezed out.

Realizing she was suffocating him, Riku reluctantly released him, but faced him with a glare that could make a man wither.

"Where have you been?" she asked in a commanding tone while looking him in the eye.

"Could I get inside the house first?" Naruto asked, half seriously, half sarcastically.

Riku stood to the side, and waited till he entered the house.

"What time is it?" Naruto asked when he noticed no on else seemed to be awake, or they had already left the house.

"Its 6:00, and you need to answer my question, where were you?"

Naruto looked her in the eye with an uncaring disposition, they silently tried to stare down each other, violet clashed against magenta, Riku would have won the stare down if she didn't have a blush that was quickly developing over her face.

Naruto donned an amused look when he won the stair down, and Riku looked away blushing, "are you feeling ok, Riku-chan? You're turning a little red," Naruto teased.

Riku regained her composure so quickly, it would have made Hiruzen proud, "I'm feeling fine Naruto-kun, but you still haven't answered my question, Where-were-you?"

"I was out training," Naruto lied smoothly.

"What were you doing training at 3:00 in the morning? You weren't in your sleeping bag, and me and Sakura couldn't find you."

_Crap! Think quick!_

**Tell her you were meditating.**

"I was also meditating," Naruto said just as smoothly as his other statement.

Riku looked at him long and hard to make sure he wasn't lying, but once again, she looked away blushing when Naruto stared right back at her.

"W-well next time leave a note or something, you had us worried," Riku said, as she noticed how interesting the floor was.

"Ok, I'll leave a note next time," Naruto said, "Why isn't anyone else awake?"

"Cat-senpai, Hana-senpai, Sai, and Tazuna left to go to the bridge, everyone else is still asleep, and I was looking for you," Riku finished as she pointed an accusing finger at Naruto.

"Sorry, but I didn't know I had to leave a note to say I was training," Naruto said sarcastically as he sat down at the table and gave a tired sigh.

Riku looked at him while he sat, his unruly hair was messier than usual, his clothes looked disheveled, he had smudges of dirt across his face and shirt, and he had clearly visible bags under his eyes;

he looked like a mess.

"Are you ok?" Riku asked as she sat down across from him at the table, the concern in her voice was clearly evident.

"Yah, I'm fine, I was training very hard, and have been having a hard time sleeping," Naruto said tiredly.

_Ok, enough of these 'learning experiences' this is getting really annoying_.

**Didn't your Hokage tell you not to use my chakra?** the fox asked in an amused tone.

_Yah, but it would only be a little, just enough to get rid of my headache; besides, I'm not gonna tell anyone._

**Fine but don't come crying to me when you get into trouble.**

Riku watched as Naruto went silent for about a minute, but she noticed how much more energetic he looked when he opened his eyes.

"We should wake up Sasuke and Sakura, and go train," Naruto said as he stood up.

"Sasuke shouldn't be training," Riku said in a disapproving tone as she too stood up.

"We could work on his chakra control," Naruto stated.

"I wish I had as much chakra as you to," Riku said.

"I'd rather have as much chakra as you," Naruto said, "there's really no point in having a lot of chakra, if you blow it in two or three jutsus."

"I never thought about it that way," Riku mused aloud, "Once you get it under control you'll be very powerful."

"I need to be," Naruto muttered as he started walking up the stairs.

_Why does he need to be so powerful?_

When Naruto entered the room that contained Sasuke and Sakura, he was surprised to see Sakura already awake, and doing some minor exercises.

"Good morning Naruto," Sakura said when she noticed him there, she was in the process of doing twenty pushups, not a ridiculous amount, but a very hard task for someone who was rather weak.

"Good morning Sakura, do you want to train with me and Riku?" Naruto asked.

"Yes!" Sakura hastily complied.

_I wonder what's up with her?_

"Cool, Riku is waiting downstairs, I'll wake up Sasuke."

"Sasuke-kun shouldn't be training, he's still injured," Sakura said in that same annoying, disapproving tone.

"I only want to work on control with him," Naruto said as he waved his hand in a placating manner. The answer appeased Sakura (not that he cared), "Ok, just be gentle with him."

Naruto just rolled his eyes as Sakura exited the room, "Oi! You little bastard, I know you're awake," Naruto said as he threw a pillow at Sasuke.

Despite his injuries, Sasuke merely reached his hand out, and caught the pillow before it hit him.

"Good morning Naruto," Sasuke said in a voice void of emotion.

"What do you mean good morning? You left me outside, I could've been eaten or something," Naruto stated accusingly.

"I thought you would be right behind me, when I realized you didn't come back in, I was gonna go look for you, but Sakura woke up and started reading."

"So? You could've sent a shadow clone to look for me," Naruto said.

"In case you've forgotten, I can barely go to the bathroom without being watched, even when I go to the bathroom Sakura is right outside the door just in case 'something' happens to me. Trust me, I was worried, I stayed up all night waiting for you."

"Oh, I'll forgive you this time," Naruto said with a smirk.

"Like I really care," Sasuke said with a chuckle.

"You know you do," Naruto said with a laugh, "Lets go train and see if you can finally do 'big ball'."

The boys exited the room after Sasuke got all of his gear, Sakura still didn't approved of him training, but there wasn't much she could do about it. It had been three days since his ribs were broken, and he might as well train now rather than later. The group exited the house and walked to the clearing that Naruto and Riku had sparred in, the day before.

Sasuke looked around the clearing and saw all of the destruction Naruto and Riku created,_ Damn, that must of been a cool spar._

They immediately split up into two groups, Sakura insisted on training with Riku, and Naruto said he needed to work with Sasuke.

To cover them while they trained, Sasuke created a low-level genjutsu that looked like he and Naruto were meditating. The genjutsu wasn't really impressive, but if the girls weren't looking for it, they would probably miss it. Sasuke didn't want to show any one the jutsu unless he was done with it or had it in a workable form.

The two boys sat down on the grass, and Sasuke took out the rubber ball from his pocket, "I think I got it this time," the avenger said confidently.

"Well, lets see it then," Naruto said with anticipation.

Sasuke started channeling chakra into the blue ball, because of the training he did the day before he was confident he could finally do it, it had been a month since he started, and he was damn ready to see some results.

The chakra was causing the ball to start to stretch, seeing he was making progress, Sasuke channeled more chakra into his hand and into the ball. The ball was stretched into a sort of oval shape, and was becoming rounder and rounder.

"Come on Sasuke, you got this!" Naruto said excitedly.

_I can do this,_ the ball stretched even more.

_I can do this! _the ball was almost as round and as big as a beach ball, Sasuke was sweating from the concentration, and chakra he was putting out. Despite his advancements in his chakra, huge amounts were still being wasted, _I can do this! _

The ball was now stretched dangerously, and looked like it would pop at any given second.

"Come on Sasuke!"

_I can do this!_

Sasuke pushed more chakra into the ball, while managing to keep it under control, the result was the huge explosion of the rubber ball, which dispelled the genjutsu and blew them both away opposite directions from each other.

…

…

…

Riku was putting Sakura through hell, (that's what Sakura thought) _the girl wants to get strong? I'll make her strong!_

After Naruto and Sasuke had gone over to train, Riku had started by throwing shuriken at Sakura while she dodged them while standing on the side of the tree. Riku sent another volley at the pink haired girl, they were all dodged but Riku noticed how tired Sakura seemed.

"Hey Sakura, are you already running out of chakra?"

"Y-yes," Sakura choked out, it took every once of concentration to stay on the tree.

"Why are your reserves so small?"

"I d-don't know, I n-never really had a l-large amount of c-chakra."

"Well before we really get anywhere, we need to increase your supply, get down…"

But before Riku could finish, an explosion rocked the area where Naruto and Sasuke were meditating. Naruto was blown right into the tree that Sakura was in, the force of the impact and the sight of the explosion caused Sakura to lose concentration,

The result, was her falling from the tree, and landing next to a dazed Naruto who was sitting down leaning against the tree.

Sasuke was closer to the blast, but the blast was mostly force, and the only thing that it really did to him besides shake him up, was it caused several rubber shards to collide with his skin at blistering speeds.

"OWW CRAP!" Sasuke screamed as he lay in the clearing.

Totally forgetting about Naruto, Sakura got up from where she sat, and despite her exhaustion, she ran over to Sasuke, and began to look him over.

Riku ran up to Naruto, but she relaxed considerably when she noticed that he was alright, her worry was replaced with anger when she noticed the apathetic, and thoughtful look Naruto had.

"Naruto, what the hell was that!" she nearly shouted at him, Naruto didn't respond at first, she didn't think he would, but after a minute of anticipation, Naruto answered nonchalantly.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know! What was that explosion! you and Sasuke could have been seriously hurt!"

"But we weren't," Naruto stated apathetically, truthfully, he didn't know what that explosion was,_ did Sasuke do the rasengan, but over load the chakra? Did he actually complete the jutsu?_

"Naruto, that is not the point, you could've died, and need I remind you that Sasuke is already injured?" Riku said in a scolding tone.

"I know I could've died, but as I said before we didn't, and I truthfully don't know what the explosion was," Naruto said in his apathetic voice, to piss Riku off further, he wasn't even looking at her, but instead he was looking over at Sasuke.

Sasuke was lying on his back in the middle of the clearing Sakura was grilling him over what just happened.

"Sasuke-kun what was that?"

Sasuke didn't say anything to her question, but maintained a satisfied smile on his face.

"Sasuke-kun, please answer my question," Sakura pestered.

"I don't know what the explosion was Sakura," Sasuke lied as he looked her in the eye. Looking Sakura in the eye had the effect that he desired, instead of questioning him further, she looked away while blushing.

"A-are you hurt?" Sakura stuttered out.

"No, I actually feel better than I have in a long time," Sasuke said as he stood up with a grin. He then turned too Naruto who was standing next to Riku, and getting verbally lashed by her telling him he need to be more careful, "Hey Naruto, lets try that again."

"Sweet!" Naruto yelled over to Sasuke, completely ignoring Riku.

Naruto ran over to where Sasuke stood, and waited for Sasuke to start channeling chakra.

_What is he doing! _Sakura thought with trepidation when she felt the impressive chakra being put off by her crush

Sasuke took a slight crouching position, and he started gathering chakra in his right hand and swirling it with his left hand. After a few seconds of nothing happening, a ball of blue chakra started to form in Sasuke's hand, it wasn't much at first, but after two more seconds, it was the size of a soft ball. Spotting a tree not to far from where he stood, Sasuke ran at it, and drove the blue sphere into the poor tree.

Naruto watched in awe as the tree was pulverized right before his eyes, Sasuke held his right arm out as the ball grinded into the tree; to finish off the jutsu, he decided to overload the chakra in his hand but not to the extent that he did earlier. The result was a contained explosion that blew his hand back, but left him unharmed. The tree was not so lucky however, and the explosion totally destroyed what was left of it.

Sasuke turned to look back at the trio that had watched him do the jutsu. He noticed the varying expressions on their faces, Naruto looked in awe at the power that the jutsu emitted, and he couldn't have been more proud that his father created such an awesome jutsu. Sakura looked frightened, elated, and relief (is that even possible?) that Sasuke knew such a powerful jutsu, and that he was fine. Riku looked frightened as well, but her curiosity got the better of her, and alleviated her fears.

"You did it!" Naruto yelled as he ran towards his bro. Both girls were surprised by his sudden outburst, which was the loudest they ever heard him speak. Naruto ran up to Sasuke and gave him a man-hug, "dude, that was real!"

"I know right, I knew it was powerful, but damn! That was impressive!" Sasuke said.

"Yo, do you mind if I learn it?" Naruto asked anxiously. Sasuke looked over at his friend, Naruto really didn't have to ask him if he could learn it, it would be like Sasuke asking somebody if he could use the sharingan, but because of their friendship, and their respect for each other, Naruto asked anyway.

"Of course you can learn it dobe,

if you got the skill," Sasuke teased.

Naruto lightly scoffed at his remark, but came back with one of his own, "if you can do it, I can guarantee I can do it!"

"I bet I could learn it in three days," Naruto said confidently.

"I'd be surprised if you couldn't learn it in three days," Sasuke said.

"Excuse me, but, what the hell was that?" Riku asked curiously.

Both Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other wondering what to tell the girls, thinking quickly, Naruto said, "it's a clan technique."

"Then why can both of you do it?" Sakura asked.

"A lot of clan techniques can be used by people outside of the clans, but they are rarely shared with other individuals outside of the clan," Sasuke said.

"Then how come you're letting Naruto learn it?" Sakura asked again.

"Actually, Naruto let me learn it," Sasuke stated.

"Wait, Naruto, you're from a clan?" Riku asked.

"Due to several precautions that my father set up, I am the last of the Namikazes," Naruto said grimly.

"Hold on," Riku started again, "if both of you are the last of your clans, aren't there laws that apply to both of you?"

Both boys nodded there heads grimly.

"What laws?" Sakura asked

"The Clan Restoration Act, it was made to make sure clans wouldn't go extinct," Sasuke said apathetically.

"You two don't seem to happy about it," Riku commented, picking up on the bad vibe the boys were portraying.

"Would you fell all that well if you were ordered to marry three people by the time you were eighteen or your brides would be picked for you?" Naruto asked, "I don't know about Sasuke, but I'm not following that law."

"Naruto! don't talk like that, you know you would do it if the Hokage told you to," Sakura said.

Naruto just looked at her and said, "if it was a couple years ago, yah, I would follow without question, but now, I don't know."

Sasuke looked over worriedly at his friend, ever since he started using the Kyuubi's chakra, he could be pretty testy, but kept his temper under control most of the time. Sasuke noticed the how his friend was starting to get a little darker, but over the mission seemed to be back to his normal self.

_Naruto, I hope you're strong enough to do what needs to be done,_ Sasuke thought.

"Naruto, you really ought not talk like that, if it bettered Konoha, you know you would do it," Riku said in a worried tone, she and Sakura were seeing a side to him they've never really seen before.

Naruto, who had started walking away, stopped in his tracks, and said something that worried the girls even more,

"I do not love the village, I owe the village nothing."

"What about you being Hokage?" Riku asked.

"I'll do it my way," Naruto said.

"You know your statements are borderline treason," Sakura said testily.

Naruto turned around and looked Sakura in the eye, "You know, I don't really care if…"

"Naruto, that's enough," Sasuke said firmly, only the Uchiha noticed Naruto's eyes shifting into a redder color.

"Naruto just looked at Sasuke, and walked off into the forest, "I'm going to go train," he said as he walked off.

"I always knew he was weird," Sakura stated, the combined killer intent of Sasuke and Riku quickly made her backtrack on her statement.

"Naruto has been through a lot, and because of certain events, he's been acting a little strange," Sasuke said.

"Doesn't it worry you though?" Sakura asked.

"More than you know…" Sasuke muttered as he started walking off towards where Naruto went.

Both girls just stood there as their crushes went off to go train.

"Riku, why does Naruto need to become strong?" Sakura asked.

"Sakura, you're asking the wrong person," Riku stated as she stared towards where Naruto and Sasuke left.

…

…

…

Naruto was deeper in the forest, and venting his stress by destroying some poor trees. He was working on his punches and kicks, and unfortunately for the poor hemlock, it was chosen.

**Kid, I don't get why you get so pissed at the CRA, most guys your age would be rejoicing.**

_I don't have time for women right now, after we defeat Madara I'll get married or whatever. If the council have their way, I'll have to defeat Madara in four years._

**You could always defeat him after you get married.**

_No, that would unnecessarily put other people at risk, besides, I don't want multiple girls, I only want one!_

**Why?**

Naruto stopped his punches and kicks, his knuckles were bruised, and his legs sore.

_I don't want multiple wives because I would hate for one of them to not be given the amount of attention each of them would deserve. I've largely been ignored most of my life, and I would hate for that to happen to someone I actually care about._

**I guess I understand, but I have to disagree with you on one point.**

**Not having any time to be interested in girls, if you go through life with that mentality, you'll never have anytime for girls. Besides, even I can tell that your brunette comrade has feelings for you.**

_Riku, she's just a fan-girl._

**I don't think so, fan girls don't train as hard as she does, most don't have the drive that she does, if you honestly think that she's going to wait for you to 'come around' as you humans say, you are misguided. The life expectancy rate for ninjas is extremely low, in fact you'll be lucky if you reach twenty-five, her teammate before the pink-haired girl was killed right before her very eyes, and at the most he was only seventeen. I guarantee that she will at least talk to you when you finish the mission.**

_How would I tell her I have absolutely no feelings to her._

**Are you sure you have no feelings for her? **the fox asked as he cut off communication between them.

Naruto blinked a few times before he started beating the poor tree again, _what does he mean 'are you sure you have no feelings for her'?_

Sasuke was up in a tree branch lounging against the trunk of a tree while he watched his friend train, _I don't want to go through the CRA because of Hinata, why doesn't he want to go through it?_

…

…

…

…

…

Dinner that night at the house was a little tense to say the least. Apparently Sakura didn't think much of Naruto's little rant earlier and made a point to bash him in front of Riku whenever possible, Naruto thoroughly ignored her and mostly talked quietly to Sasuke while periodically shooting Riku curious glances.

While the teens were busy amongst themselves, Hana, Cat and Sai were discussing what the plan was for the next few days. It was Wednesday and if Tazuna's estimates were correct, the bridge would be completed on Friday.

"Tomorrow, we should take Naruto and Riku, and leave Sasuke and Sakura," Hana stated, "Sai, have Sasuke's ribs mended?"

"Yes, but he will still have difficultly moving around, but he can do jutsu and fight."

"Good, Zabuza will probably strike on Friday, so everyone will have to come," Hana said.

Cat nodded his head and spoke, "no doubt Gato will bring out all of the stops on Friday in hopes of killing Tazuna, we will have to fight our hardest in hopes of winning."

"I do have some good news, my ningen are fully healed, and all I have to do is summon them and they will be ready to fight," Hana said excitedly.

"Good," Cat curtly replied, "that will definitely help our chances."

At the opposite end of the table, a little boy with a weird hat saw all of the people and noticed how tense they were, _they probably know they're gonna die soon._

…

…

…

That night, all of the teens except Sai were upstairs in the room they shared.

Sasuke and Naruto were getting caught up on gaming that they had missed, while Sakura was reading a book, and Riku was writing on a piece of paper.

"Naruto, do you mind turning that down!" Sakura scolded.

Naruto didn't miss a beat, nor did he look up when he replied, "If you actually took time to listen, you would notice Sasuke's volume is louder than mine."

Sakura glared in response and said, "You know, I'm going to tell the Hokage what you told us in the clearing."

Naruto didn't look up from his game and answered. "I would be more surprised if you didn't tell him."

Before Sakura could reply, Riku cut in, "I don't think you would or should get into trouble just because you said you didn't love the village, but you also said you didn't know if you would follow the Hokage's orders. How could you seriously say that?"

"I've been going through some new experiences, and the old man isn't really helping the situation. I think he should leave me alone, and only interfere when it is absolutely necessary."

"Regardless of what you think, its his job to protect the village," Sakura stated.

"Are you saying I'm a threat to the village?" Naruto responded while looking at Sakura with a hard gaze.

"You seem like one to me," Sakura muttered.

"Sakura, I would really appreciate it if you didn't insult my friend right in front of me," Sasuke said coldly as he also put down his game.

Sakura shut up when Sasuke spoke to her, but Riku still had something to say, "What are the new experiences that you are going through Naruto?"

"Me being a jinchuuriki, I don't think its wise for me not to be able to use the Kyuubi's chakra, because who knows when I might need it? If the need arose and I would have to disobey a direct order, I would disobey without a second thought; I know the Hokage wouldn't like it, but I think he would understand," Naruto stated.

"I guess I understand," Riku said, "I would also have to agree with you, if I was a jinchuuriki and I needed to save the life of a teammate, I would disobey the order in a heartbeat."

"I always thought that it was like someone telling me not to work with my sharingan," Sasuke added.

"Its because of the Kyuubi that your eyes are magenta right?" Riku asked.

Naruto nodded his head in response, and eager to get off the current subject he asked, "so what are you writing?"

Riku gave a slight blush because he was interested in what she was doing, "I'm writing to my dad."

Everyone in the room where a little more interested in this news than normal people. Sakura's father had been killed in a mission when she was three, and you all know what happened to Naruto and Sasuke's parents.

"What's it like to have a father?" Sakura asked quietly.

"Its fun, me and my dad don't see each other all that much so when we do see each other, we try to have as much fun as possible. When he's around, I've always got someone watching my back, and giving me good advice. I only wish that my mother hadn't died…" Riku finished quietly.

"But, who am I to complain, I ought to be very thankful that I do have a father, and whenever he visits we always do all the fun things as possible."

"When is the next time you'll see him?" Naruto asked, rather interested in meeting the man Riku talked so much about.

"He said he's coming to Konoha for the chuunin exams," Riku stated happily.

"The chuunin exams are in two months," Sasuke announced, "hopefully Kakashi will get up off his lazy butt by then."

Naruto gave a small laugh in response, "For being a jounin, he's almost as lazy as Shikamaru."

"I know right, I would love to know what he really does on his mornings when he's late," Sasuke mused.

"What time are your team meetings in the morning?" Riku asked curiously.

"We meet at ten in the morning, but somehow Kakashi manages to still turn up late," Naruto said with a slight chuckle.

Before Riku could ask another question, Sakura cut in, "its ten at night, I think we should get some sleep, we still need to train, and who knows what's going to happen at the bridge." Both boys just grunted in response, as they lay down in their respective sleeping bags, Riku hastily finished up her letter, and climbed into the bed where Naruto used to sleep.

"Good night all you happy people," Sasuke quipped.

"Good night jackass," Naruto responded, which got Riku to giggle.

"Love you too Naruto," Sasuke said, getting the final word in.

After an hour of waiting, both boys waited till the girls breathing became more regular, and simultaneously they whipped out their Playstation Vitas and started to game, after all, sleep is overrated.

…

…

…

…

…

Then next day everyone woke nice, refreshed, and ready to train. When they all got ready and exited the bedroom, they were surprised to see everyone down stairs eating breakfast. They all took a seat, and listened to the plan for today.

"I hope you two," Hana pointed at Riku and Naruto, "didn't have any plans for today, because we will be guarding Tazuna. Sai, you will finish healing Sasuke by taking as much lactic acid from his system as possible. Sakura, you can either train or come to the bridge, its your call," Hana finished.

"I'll stay and train," Sakura said.

"I wish I could go," Sasuke muttered.

"You could knock out Sai and come," Naruto suggested quietly.

Before Sasuke could respond, "Oi! What are you two scheming about over there?" Hana asked.

"Absolutely nothing of importance," Sasuke lied perfectly. Hana was rather skeptical but thought, _they wouldn't do anything to compromise the mission._

"Do you seriously think I should do that?" Sasuke whispered to Naruto.

"I wouldn't risk it," Naruto said aloud.

"Well, If you wouldn't mind, I would prefer if we get to the bridge sooner than later," Cat said as he entered the room. Everyone that was going to the bridge finished eating rather quickly, and speedily helped Tsunami clean up the mess they created. By the time they arrived at the bridge, it was nine in the morning, Tazuna immediately started to work with the remaining workers, while Naruto started working on the rasengan. He was still on the first step, which was bursting a water balloon by swirling the water on the inside. He was currently sitting on the side of the bridge while Riku was observing what he was doing.

"So your dad created this jutsu?" she asked.

"yah, but he died before he could finish it," Naruto said while concentrating hard on the task he was doing.

"Why did you let Sasuke learn it?"

"Because he's my friend," Naruto said nonchalantly.

"That's a good reason," Riku said with a light chuckle.

"Hold on!" Naruto said excitedly, the water in the balloon was swirling rapidly, and the rubber in the balloon was starting to stretch dangerously.

_Come on! Almost there!_

Naruto pumped more chakra into the balloon while doing his best to keep it under control. The blue rubber on the outside of the red balloon had become a pinkish color because of how much it was stretched.

_Just a little more… _Naruto poured a little bit more chakra into the balloon, and the results were instantaneous. The balloon burst with tremendous force, and sent the water, and shards of the balloon flying in all sorts of directions. Naruto was thoroughly doused in water from the explosion, and some of the water splashed onto Riku's pants.

"I did it!" Naruto said happily as he did a small dance.

"Yah, you did it, but you managed to get yourself and me soaked," Riku said glumly.

"Oh, sorry," Naruto said as he calmed down, "Here, let me help, this might mess up your hair though," Naruto said.

Naruto did some hand signs, and whispered, Futon: wind stream. Instead of being a raging torrent of air that proceeded out of Naruto's mouth, a small stream, more powerful than a hairdryer, but not as strong as a leaf blower was blown from Naruto's mouth. He blew himself down, then gently blew down Riku.

"Thanks," Riku said when Naruto finished blowing.

"Don't mention it," Naruto responded while looking at her. Riku's hair was thoroughly messed up, but instead of freaking out, she drew out a sealing scroll, and summoned a comb.

"It pays to be prepared," Riku said with a slight blush when she noticed Naruto was curiously looking at her.

"True," Naruto mused as he started doing some push ups.

…

…

…

Back at the house, Sai had already done his healing session with Sasuke, and was currently training with Sakura while Sasuke rested. Sai dodged under a kick that that Sakura sent at him, but he wasn't given any time to recover when Sakura sent punches and kicks his way. Sai dodge all of the attacks, and jumped back to get some room. The duo were in the clearing in the woods, and had been at this for ten minutes. Although she was still rather weak, Sai noticed how much stronger Sakura had gotten, and how much she drove herself to be strong.

Sai was getting rather bored of the spar and wanted to end it quickly so he could go back to painting, he rushed at Sakura with his ninja-to drawn. He was twenty feet from Sakura when the girl cried out: Doton: earth wall jutsu!

A wall of dirt and rocks burst from the ground fifteen feet in front of Sai. The pale faced boy kept running, but before he could jump over the wall, Sakura punched it.

In the blink of an eye, after Sakura punched the wall, several segments appeared in the wall, before they were blown towards Sai at alarming speeds. Because of how close he was to the wall, Sai was hard pressed to dodge all of the segments. Six of them were sent his way, he jumped over the first one, sidestepped the next two, then ducked under the fourth, dodged the fifth, but was hit by the sixth.

The stone hit him square in the chest, and knocked him back ten feet. When he got up, Sakura noticed that Sai actually had a noticeable grimace on his face.

_I hit him!_

Sai looked at Sakura with his fake smile quickly replacing the grimace, "Sakura-san, I do not think it wise to continue our spar, I must commend you though, that is an interesting jutsu," Sai said as he started healing his chest.

"Thank you Sai, but I really think I got lucky with that last jutsu," Sakura commented as they exited the clearing.

"You ought not put yourself down," Sai said, remembering something Danzo told him, "Only berate yourself if you truly deserved it, or you failed.

You have gotten stronger over the mission, but you still have ways to go before the chuunin exams in a couple months."

"Thanks Sai," Sakura said as they walked at a leisurely pace.

"I have to ask though," Sai started, "why are you training so hard all of a sudden?"

Sakura slightly paused before she continued walking, "I'm doing it so I can impress someone," Sakura said quietly.

Sai nodded his head in understanding, but didn't say anything else till they got to the house. they entered through the front door, Tsunami was busying herself cleaning up the house, Inari was brooding on the couch, while Sasuke was 'sleeping' upstairs.

"Hi Tsunami-san, is Sasuke-kun asleep?" Sakura asked.

"He should be," Tsunami said with a hint of annoyance in her voice, "He keeps playing those pointless games, they're such a waste of time. I hope Inari doesn't play them when he gets older."

Sakura nodded her head in agreement, and walked upstairs to check on Sasuke. Sasuke was lying on his bed, but he wasn't asleep, and he wasn't playing his Vita.

"Hello Sasuke-kun!" Sakura chirped when she entered the room.

"Hi," Sasuke said apathetically.

"Are you ok?" Sakura asked.

"Yah, I'm just tired," Sasuke said.

"Ok," Sakura said as she pulled up the chair next to his bed.

"Are you sore?"

"A bit," was Sasuke's blunt reply.

"I was training with Sai, and I got him to call off the spar before one of us was seriously hurt," Sakura said proudly.

Sasuke looked at her with a raised eyebrow, neither he nor Naruto really knew of Sai's full power, and yet sakura had at least drawn with him in a spar, "Good job," Sasuke said.

Sakura beamed at Sasuke's praise, and she desperately wanted to continue talking to him, but Tsunami called from downstairs asking for help in preparing dinner.

"See you at supper," Sakura said as she exited the room.

…

…

…

At the bridge, Naruto and Riku were having a pretty swell time. They told stories, jokes, and basically talked about themselves.

"Then he goes, 'did you hear about the newest pirate movie, its rated aaaarrrrrggghhh!" Riku said while laughing.

Naruto burst out laughing from the bad joke, "That's terrible," he choked out in between laughs. "Ok you two, its time to head back to the house," Hana said. The sun was starting to set, Tazuna had put away most of the tools, Cat was around the bridge somewhere, and everybody was hungry.

Despite being rather happy nothing happened on the bridge today, everyone was slightly nervous about tomorrow, if Gato was going to strike it was going to be on Friday.

_I should try to finish the rasengan,_ Naruto mused as the group walked back to the house.

**You know, your father meant to add his chakra element to the rasengan, but I attacked before he could finish.**

_What would happen if I added my element, or if Sasuke added his element?_

**Most likely you would create some sort of wind rasengan, while Sasuke would create some sort of flaming rasengan, which sounds epic.**

Naruto rolled his eyes at the demon, the fox was a bonified pyromaniac, and greatly enjoyed anything fire related, _a fire rasengan does sound pretty sick though…_

Riku was going to talk to Naruto, but she noticed how deep in though he was, and how his eyes took on a slightly redder hue,_ I wonder if he can talk to the fox?_

They arrived at the house just as soon as Tsunami and Sakura finished setting the table.

"Hi Dad," Tsunami said when they entered the house. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and turned to everyone else, "Hello everyone, go get cleaned up so we can eat." Nobody had to be told twice to get cleaned up, after about five minutes everyone was seated at the table (except for Cat) and were hungrily digging into their meals.

"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto said as he swallowed some rice, "What did you do today?"

"Nothing much, Sai did this weird thing to my chest, and it hurt like hell," Sasuke replied, "How was it at the bridge?"

"It would have been really boring if Riku wasn't there," Naruto said, Riku was deep in a conversation with Sakura about training, and didn't notice Naruto talking about her, "I also finished the first stage of 'big ball'," Naruto said with a smirk. Sasuke gagged on his rice,_ he's already done with the first stage!_

"I watched what you were doing wrong when you first started training, and learned from your mistakes," Naruto said, "from some weird reason, the jutsu just seems to come naturally to me."

"Your dad DID create the jutsu," Sasuke mused.

"true, I'm still in awe about how powerful it is," Naruto said.

"I would hate to be on the receiving end of it," Sasuke said.

"Well lucky for us, we're the only one in the world who know the jutsu," Naruto stated.

Sasuke let out a small laugh, "Hopefully we'll never have to use it on each other."

"Yah, that would suck."

…

…

…

That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Naruto was preparing himself to go train on the Rasengan. He had 'borrowed' a bouncy ball from Inari, and was getting his gear ready to go train. He was tiptoeing towards the door to the bedroom, when a stupid floorboard gave an obscenely loud creak,_ Damnit!_

Naruto heard some stirring from the side of the room where Riku slept; from his experiences with her, Naruto had deduced that Riku was a rather light sleeper. _Go back to sleep! Go back to sleep! Go back to sleep!_

"N-Naruto, what are you doing up?" Riku asked groggily.

_Crap, _"I'm going to meditate," Naruto lied.

"You know you're a terrible liar," Riku said as she glared at him in the dark.

"I always seem to convince people even if it's a lie, as I recall, I lied to you earlier a couple days ago," Naruto said with a small smirk. Riku was slightly peeved at being lied to but continued on anyway, "I knew you went out with Sasuke instead of meditating." Before Naruto could ask how she knew, Riku stated, "you talk a lot in your sleep."

"Oh," Naruto said rather lamely which caused Riku to giggle. Their conversation had caused Sasuke to be slightly roused in his sleep, "Naruto sucks, don't talk to him anymore Hinata-chan," Sasuke said in between snores.

Sasuke's sleep talking caused Riku to giggle even more while Naruto mused aloud, "I'll have to ask him about his dream later." Naruto started walking towards the door, but Riku interrupted him again, "So are you going training?"

"Yah, I'm only going to be gone a few hours," Naruto said as he turned to face the brunette.

"Stay safe," Riku said quietly, "and make sure you come back before sunrise," Riku said teasingly.

Naruto slightly blushed and asked, "so you know that I hit my head?"

"Yah, you kept muttering something about stupid trees and dumb headaches, so it was pretty easy to figure out what happened."

Naruto gave a small laugh, "See you in a couple hours Riku-chan."

Riku blushed when Naruto called her Riku-chan, "bye Naruto-kun."

…

…

…

Back in Konoha

It was Friday morning. Hiruzen was on his was on his way to the end of the week council meeting. He stood outside the doors to the council room, the old man took a deep breath, _I'm getting to old for this…_

He flung open the doors, and confidently strode into the room. All of the clan heads were there, quietly discussing matters among themselves, and the civilian council members were loudly discussing matters among themselves.

Everyone quieted down when the Hokage entered the room, Hiruzen took his seat facing everyone on one side sat Homura, and on the other side sat Koharu, Danzo was conveniently absent.

"Good morning everybody," Sarutobi said.

"Good morning Hokage-sama," everyone in the room said.

"I hereby commence this meeting," Sarutobi said as he hit his desk with the hammer thing that judges use. As soon as he started the meeting, the civilian council was in an uproar.

"Why are genin on an A-rank mission?"

"What happens if the Namikaze and Uchiha heirs are killed?"

"Why has no backup been sent?"

These questions and many others were yelled out in a short period of time. Sarutobi sighed in annoyance, _this is exactly what I don't need right now._

"Silence," Sarutobi said and he backed it up with some killer intent. This shut the civilian side right up, but not everybody.

"Hokage-sama, is it wise to allow such important assets to the village to continue on such a dangerous mission?" Councilwomen Misaki Miyu asked.

"The genin are all under the command of Hana Inuzaka, I think they are in good hands," Sarutobi stated.

"But Hokage-sama…"

"Are you implying that Tsume's daughter's leadership is not good enough?" Sarutobi rhetorically stated. Tsume slightly growled at the councilwomen.

"An ANBU has been dispatched to help in the mission," Sarutobi said, _one of Danzo's root nin._

"Hokage-sama," Inoichi started, "You dispatched an ANBU?" he asked incredulously.

"To be precise Inoichi, I did not send an ANBU, it is one of Danzo's Root nin, but he is assisting the miss Inuzaka and the genin."

"Is it wise to let the chuunin and genin stay with one of Danzo's men?" Hiashi asked.

"From what I could gather from the letter Hana sent, they don't even know he's not a village ANBU, as soon as they return to the village the Root nin will be apprehended," Sarutobi said.

"And why would you apprehend the Root nin?" Takahiro Takumi asked.

"For impersonating a Konoha ANBU," Hiruzen said, "Hopefully we can get some solid evidence on Danzo, and force him to shut down Root."

Danzo had been in control of the Root for many years now, but no matter all of the effort Hiruzen put into finding solid evidence, everything came up empty. Sarutobi used his most trusted jonin, which included Kakashi and his own son Asuma, on raids and interrogation on various places in the village. Once they actually captured a Root nin, but when they went to interrogate him, he started convulsing, and he died right in the interrogation room, it was later determined that the ninja had seals on his heart that stopped his heart when he started talking about Danzo. If they caught this nin, they would detain him until the seal master Jiraiya cold disable all of his seals.

"Hokage-sama, why don't you let the Root nin operate as normal nin under Danzo's control," Takahiro suggested.

"Absolutely not," Hiruzen said vehemently, "who knows what Danzo would do if he was allowed to operate in the open."

"What I don't understand is, why are they continuing the mission," Sayuka Haruno stated.

"I thought over the matter a great deal," Sarutobi started, "I came to the conclusion that your daughter and the other genin were in good hands, and that this mission would open their eyes to goes on outside of the gates of Konoha. Is their anything else to discuss?" Sarutobi asked getting rather bored of the current subject.

"Hokage-sama," One particularly fat councilman began, "Denizens in sector…"

But Hiruzen wasn't really paying attention.

_I need a vacation…_

* * *

><p><strong>hope you all enjoyed, i'll try to have the other chapter up in about a week and a half, please review it really means alot to me, friend me on psn: <strong>rychussnik

if you havent already, check out playstion vita


	9. Chapter 9

Sasuke woke up Friday morning to the sound of chirping birds. He propped himself up with a pillow, and glanced at his watch to see the time.

_Its only 5:30, Tazuna won't be heading out to the bridge for another 3 hours. _

Sasuke looked around the room at his sleeping comrades. Naruto was to his right in his sleeping bag, he was snoring quietly, and some drool leaking out of the side of his mouth.

_What an idiot, _Sasuke thought with a smirk.

Sasuke then took a look at the two females in the room. Sakura was sleeping soundly in the bed that Sasuke used to occupy, while Riku must've "fallen" out of her bed, with a pillow and blanket, and was sleeping next to Naruto.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the girls antics, but then he got a devilish idea.

_This is some prime blackmail material…_

Sasuke looked for his phone, but then remembered that they weren't allowed to bring them on missions, so he fished around in his bag for his Playstation Vita and snapped a couple pics of the snoozing couple.

With self satisfied smirk, Sasuke settled back into his sleeping bag, and played through a few missions of Gravity Rush.

…

…

…

A little while later, at 6:15, Riku began to stir. She started to move, but then remembered that she was sleeping next to Naruto. She pivoted so that she was facing the sleeping blonde, and smiled at what she saw.

Naruto was sleeping on his back, and had one arm tucked under his head, and the other resting on his chest. He had slept on the sleeping bag instead of in it, and was he was softly snoring.

Riku reached out with her right hand and lightly ghosted over his cheek. She hastily fled back to her bed when Naruto started to stir.

Unbeknownst to Riku, Sasuke was watching her intently as she climbed back into her bed

Naruto appeared as if he was waking up, but he just rolled over, and continued to softly snore.

Sasuke glanced at his watch and noticed to the time, _I should probably get everyone up. _

Sakura had already woken up, and was somewhere downstairs.

He got up and exited his sleeping bag, gave Riku a knowledgeable smirk and said, "Good morning Riku."

"Good morning Sasuke."

"How was your sleep last night?" Sasuke aked innocently.

"I slept very well, thank you," Riku countered.

"I bet you did…" Sasuke said cryptically.

Riku slightly blushed and said, "I-I don't know what you're talking about."

Deciding to make the kuniochi suffer, Sasuke whipped out his vita and confidently strode over to the brunette.

He didn't say any words, all he did was show her the pictures.

"Please don't show Naruto!" Riku said rather desperately.

"Please don't show Naruto what?" Naruto asked groggily as he got up from his sleeping bag, while rubbing his eyes.

"I-Its nothing don't worry about it," Riku said nervously.

"Its none of your business, bum," Sasuke said as he slipped his Vita back into his pocket. Naruto grunted and cursed at the Uchiha under his breath, while he began getting ready for the impending mission.

Riku began to silently thank Sasuke but stopped, and became rather nervous when he began to smile sweetly at her.

"I'm not done with you yet," Sasuke said with a sadistically sweet smile.

Before Riku could ask what he meant, Sai entered the room.

"Good to see you are all awake, Hana wants to brief us on the plan of action for today over breakfast, so hurry up and get down stairs."

The three ninjas nodded and got ready for today.

As Naruto slowly started to wake up, he became aware of the quick glances Riku was shooting him. When he finished getting ready, he turned to Sasuke, who had an amused smile on his face, and asked, "you ready for this?"

"Hell yeah, I wanna get back home."

"I hear you, this climate is so damp."

"Good morning," Hana said as the trio arrived downstairs.

"Sup."

"Hi."

"Yo." the teens said as they took a seat at the table. Tazuna was seated at the head of the table and had already downed a whole bottle of sake, and was currently working on his second.

"Dad! You shouldn't drink so much!" Tsunami scolded.

"Tsunami, if I die today, I want to be comforted in the fact that I enjoyed my last drinks as much as possible," Tazuna said firmly.

"I assure you Tazuna-san, you are not going to die today," Cat said resolutely.

"I'll still drink if I wanna though."

"Ok lets get down to business," Hana said as she, Sai, Sakura, and Cat sat down on the table, "last night, me and Cat had a long discussion over the plan of action for today. I was thinking that we could split into two attack teams. No doubt, the biggest threat will be to Tazuna today, but Gato could also be planning an attack on Tsunami and Inari. I was thinking that we could leave two shinobi here to protect them, and the remaining five could protect Tazuna at the bridge."

"I'll stay here," Naruto volunteered.

"Ok, do we have a second vol-."

"I'll stay here too," Riku said hastily while blushing, cutting across Sasuke who was about to volunteer.

"Alright, I would prefer it if you stayed inside of the house while we're gone, who knows what Gato might send… If Gato does send a hitman for Tsunami and Inari, I don't think he would spend that much resources against them when he could use them on the bridge. If someone does come," Hana said as she looked Naruto and Riku in the eye, "After you defeat them, run to the bridge, do I make myself clear?"

"Hai," they both chorused, while taking notice of the sterner tone of voice Hana had.

"The rest of you," Hana said addressing everyone else, "Sai and Sakura, you two will protect Tazuna at all times unless other wise stated, Sasuke, you will engage the hunter-nin if he comes, if he doesn't show up, protect Tazuna?"

"Hai."

"After breakfast we'll head out," Hana finished.

Breakfast was a rather solemn affair. Most people were nervous or tense. Sakura (who had made sure to sit next to Sasuke) was extremely nervous because Sasuke actually looked nervous.

_Lets get this over with, _Sasuke said as he stared at his plate. He looked around the table and studied everyone's facial expressions: Hana looked slightly tense, but it was more from the prospect of losing a comrade, Cat and Sai looked as normal as they usually did, but Sai was a little paler that usual, Sakura looked like she was ready to crap herself, Naruto stared into his plate, but otherwise had a blank expression, and Riku looked nervous but she appeared rather confident in her abilities.

Eager to get to the bridge, those that were going to the bridge ate their meals quickly, and readied themselves for the day.

When everyone was ready to go, Hana turned to everyone else that was staying and said, "well, we're off, good luck, and hopefully we'll see you guys later on." She then exited the house, followed by Tazuna, Cat, and Sai. Sakura gave Riku a quick hug, then also exited the house. Sasuke and Naruto bumped fist, then Naruto said, "go kick some grass."

Sasuke gave a small laugh, and said with a smirk, "Good bye Riku."

"Good bye Sasuke," Riku said as she glared at him

"We'll talk when I get back," Sasuke said while he walked out the door.

"What was that all about?" Naruto asked as he shut the door.

"Oh, it was nothing." Riku said as she walked through the living room.

"Ok, So what are we going to do? Sit around and wait to be attacked?" Naruto asked semi-sarcastically. Tsunami was in the living room reading a book, while inari was in his room brooding.

"You should send out some shadow clones and create a defensive perimeter around the house," Riku suggested as the duo sat down at the dinning room table.

"Good idea," Naruto praised, Riku blushed at his comment, Naruto got up from his seat and did the familiar hand signs. When the smoke cleared from the jutsu, the room was filled with ten more identical Naruto's.

"Sup boss," one of the clones said to the real Naruto, "What do you need us to do?"

"I need you guys to create a defensive perimeter, in the trees around the house, got it?"

"Hai!"

One by one, the clones filed out of the front door, once they were outside, they all jumped into the trees, and took up defensive positions.

"If someone does try to attack, they'll have to dispell the clones before they can get to the house," Naruto stated.

"Sweet."

The duo sat back down at the table, across from each other, just as Inari came downstairs. The little boy and Naruto had a small glaring match ( which was won by Naruto).

"What are you still doing here?" Inari sneered.

"What do you think," Naruto snapped back at him, as he pulled out his Vita and a pair of headphones.

"You're in way over your heads, you should get out of here before you get seriously hurt."

"Kid, I've already been seriously hurt on this mission, a couple more injuries won't kill me," Naruto said confidently, "Besides, we've got two medical-nin that are also on this mission."

Inari scoffed at Naruto's comments, "You think your invincible, don't you? Just cuz you heal quickly, and your eyes are a weird color doesn't make you special. Gato doesn't discriminate when it comes to killing people."

"I know I'm not special, but there are certain circumstances that have caused those thing that you mentioned, I highly doubt that anyone of Gato's thugs could honestly go toe-to-toe with us except for Zabuza," Naruto said calmly.

"you're too cocky for your own good," Inari started, "I may be only twelve, but I've seen my fair share of blood shed. I had many friends that said they would be the ones to take down Gato, and do you know what happened to all of them, they were all killed!"

"Yah, but the difference between me and them is that I'm a ninja, I can take care of myself," Naruto said coldly.

"You're not a very good ninja," Inari said in a equally cold tone.

"And you're a whiny piece of dung," Naruto snapped at him.

"Guys, settle down," Riku said, taking control of the situation.

"I was done talking to him anyway," Inari said as he turned his back on the duo, and exited the room. Riku was about to turn and talk to Naruto, but was disappointed to find that he also had risen and was exiting the room.

"Where are you going, Naruto?" Riku asked.

"I'm going upstairs," Naruto answered.

Riku looked on as her crush ascended the stairs and entered the bedroom.

Naruto entered the room, and sat down on the floor. He crossed his legs in a meditative pose, closed his eyes.

_Yo, where are you?_

**In your head, idiot. **

_What's was all that? I usually have better control over myself than that?_

**I don't think it had all that much to do with me. Honestly most of that was actually you, but you may be slightly affected by my chakra, but if you ask me, you have every right to be angry.**

_I can't keep almost losing my temper, and nearly blowing up; what do you think I should do._

**Just meditate more, and you should be fine.**

_Alright._

Naruto cut off the mental connection between he and the fox, and was about to start to meditate, when the door to the room swung open.

"I think we need to have a chat."

…

…

…

Sasuke Uchiha was bored out of his mind. Hana wouldn't let hm play his Vita, so he was forced to "listen" to Sakura jabber on incessantly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, and thought,_ I should have beaten Riku to the punch._

…

…

…

"Riku, I'm trying to meditate," Naruto said annoyed.

"Well you obviously need it. Whats wrong with you anyway? You're not normally like this, this is the second time you've nearly lost your composure on this mission alone."

"I am well aware of that fact," Naruto said.

"Well, what are you going to do about your temper and emotions," Riku asked sternly. As much as she liked Naruto, above all else, Riku was a ninja. Incompetence in any form greatly aggravated her, and lack of self-control irked her to no end.

"I _was_ trying to meditate before you came in, but other than that I should be fine," Naruto stated as he started down at his hand.

"Please don't tell the Hokage about me and Inari though," Naruto asked.

"Why not?" Riku asked, rather surprised at his request.

"Me and him don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to the Kyuubi, and the last thing that I want him thinking is that the demon is trying to take over or some other crap."

"So does this involve the Kyuubi?"

"No, just other things going on," Naruto lied.

"Please, I would really appreciate it if you didn't tell him," Naruto said as he looked her in the eyes.

As much as she would've liked to say no, Riku made the fatal of looking into Naruto;s eyes.

"A-alright, but I will tell Sasuke though, maybe he could help you out," Riku concluded.

"Thanks."

"No prob, just remember that you owe me though."

"I'll make it up to you when- OH CRAP!"

…

…

…

Sasuke was officially on the brink. He had been at the bridge for over two hours, and their had been no action.

_Damn you Riku._

"-then I was like, 'you shouldn't be so mean to Shikamaru,' but Ino-pig said-

_Come on Zabuza, show your self._

Completely ignoring Sakura, except for a few grunts of recognition, Sasuke surveyed the bridge: a lot of the workers hadn't come to the bridge today, it was understandable, and Sasuke didn't blame them.

_I sure as hell wouldn't be on this bridge if I didn't have ninja training. _

Sai and Cat lounged on a stack of 2x4's speaking amongst themselves in low voices, while Hana basically shadowed Tazuna in case someone tried a ranged attack.

_Where's the action! Where's the violence! _Sasuke mentally yelled. What was starting to really get to him was the stress of the situation. He had basically been sitting in the same spot for two hours waiting to be attacked.

That wasn't good for one's psyche.

_I should create a genjutsu that covers me playing me PSV…_

Sasuke raised his hands to start the genjutsu, but stopped when he noticed the mist starting to envelope the bridge.

The Uchiha smirked and thought- _finally!_

…

…

…

"What's wrong!" Riku said nervously.

"They're coming!" Naruto yelled as he rushed out of the room with Riku right behind him.

The two ninja ran down the stairs at full tilt, and when they arrived on the first floor, they saw Tsunami talking to Inari.

"Tsunami, you and Inari need to get upstairs NOW!" Naruto said anxiously.

"Why?" Inari asked.

"Just do it," Riku snapped.

Deciding it was best to do what the ninja said, Tsunami, and Inari went upstairs, and barricaded themselves in the master bedroom.

**Good luck kid.**

_I'm gonna need it…_

Naruto went to the front door, and blocked it by propping one of the dining room chairs up under the door handle , he then drew a kunai, and looked over at Riku.

Riku had her ninja-to draw and ready.

"How many do you think there are?" Riku whispered.

"I don't know, but all my clones were dispelled at the same time," Naruto whispered back.

Naruto sneaked around to the kitchen, and hid behind the counter, he had a view of the front door, and the counter offered good cover. He drew a kunai, and slipped a low explosive note onto it.

Seeing where Naruto went, Riku quietly joined him in taking cover, and waiting.

Nothing happened for a about a minute, then another, then another, and then another.

Naruto was about to send a shadow clone to look out the window to see what was happening outside, when he noticed the door knob starting to turn as someone tried to open it.

The door however was blocked by the chair, and as a result, the person trying to open it was unsuccessful.

Naruto and Riku waited with held breath to see what would happen. Nothing happened for a second, till Riku and Naruto heard the distinct sound of a wakizashi being drawn.

The front door was cut to ribbons by two massive strokes with the sword, and a humongous man pushed through the reminants of the door.

The man was wearing a lose fitting combat kimono, and had the wakizashi held firmly in his hand. he was easily six foot six inches, and roughly 275 pounds of muscles.

He looked around the room, but didn't see Riku and Naruto hiding, "Yuhihara, it's clear."

A scrawny looking man that also had a wakizashi, ambled into the house, and looked over the surrounding.

"Looks like no one's home," the scrawny man remarked.

"they're here, I can feel him," the burly man said.

Naruto looked at Riku and silently mouthed, _three, two one!_

The two ninja burst from the cover at the same time, Naruto flipped over the counter, and in the process of the flip, he flung his kunai at the burly man.

The man deftly blocked the kunai with his sword, but was unprepared when Naruto detonated it in his face, the kunai blew out on of the walls of the house, and the burly man was blown outside.

Naruto gave Riku a look, before he jumped outside to face his opponent.

_I can do this-_ Riku assured herself as she faced off against the man named Yuhihara.

_Time to kick some_

Naruto jumped outside, onto the front yard just in time to see the huge man hoist himself up off the ground. The side of his face was severely burned, and from the look of his right eye, he had lost the ability to see out of it anymore.

"You little s!" the man yelled at Naruto, "prepare to die!" the man shouted as he rushed Naruto.

It was to close to get off a jutsu so Naruto was forced to dodge the attacks the man sent his way. The huge man was very good with the sword, he was very accurate and precise in his blade, but he couldn't catch up to the swift footed youth.

Naruto jumped over a slash by his attacker, and while he was in mid-air, he gave a bone crushing kick to the man's face. The man was knocked back several feet by the kick, but the he picked himself up, cracked his neck, and resumed his battle stance.

"Bring it!" the man taunted as he tried to goad Naruto into making a mistake.

_Oh, I'll bring it alright!_

Naruto put his hands together, and produced five kage bushins.

"Lets get him!" Naruto roared as he charged at the man.

The big man smirked as he saw the kid charging in openly. He started to rotate with his blade held horizontally as he span quickly.

To dodge the blade, Naruto and his clones were forced to jump into the air. As soon as the six ninja's jumped into the air, the big man stopped spinning his sword, and shifted it so that it was now spinning above his head.

Naruto saw the predicament he was in, in the blink of an eye, the Namikaze heir's situation went from really good, to very bad.

If he continued to fall, he would get shredded by the man's wakizashi.

Thinking quickly, Naruto grabbed on of the clones legs, and despite its protests, he flung it at the man below. The poor clone dispelled with a puff of smoke, but the force with which Naruto flung it, knocked the man off of his feet.

While he was still falling, Naruto drew out a bunch of shuriken and kunai, and threw them at the man below. The big man was hard pressed to dodge all of the shuriken, but he managed to deflect or dodge all except for one.

One of the kunai found its way to his right foot, and hit with such force that it pinned his foot to the floor.

"AHHHH!" the man yelled out in pain. He was vaguely aware that Naruto, and the four remaining clones had landed. The man took a deep breath, and pulled the kunai out of his foot.

He took too long however. When he turned to face Naruto, he was met head on by a fully matured rasengan.

"Rasengan!" Naruto yelled as the ball of chakra shredded its way into the man's chest.

Remembering what Sasuke did with overloading the chakra, Naruto decided to do the same, but to a lesser degree. He pushed more chakra than was necessary into the blue ball, and the result was a contained explosion that blew out the big mans chest, and sent his body rocketing into a mass of trees.

**He's not getting up-** Kyuubi mused.

Naruto stood in and looked down at himself: he was relatively unscathed from the battle, but was covered in the mans blood. The blonde teen didn't move from where he stood for a second, but was snapped out of his reverie when he heard something crash in the house.

_Riku!- _Naruto thought as he rushed into the house.

He arrived just in time to see Riku give her opponent a finishing blow. Riku slashed the man across his chest, and followed it up by running him through .

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked as he entered the remnants of the living room.

"Hai, we should get Tsunami and Inari and get them out of here," Riku commented as she cleaned off her blade on the dead mans coat.

"I'll go get them, see if you can get rid of that body," Riku said as she started for the stairs.

Naruto watched her run upstairs, and summoned a clone and sent it to get rid of the two bodies.

When Inari and Tsunami came downstairs, Tsunami covered the little boys eyes so he didn't have to see all of the blood. The mother started to cry when she saw the destruction of the house.

"Do you have any friends you could stay at when we go to the bridge?" Naruto asked morosely.

Tsunami just nodded her head yes. "Go to them, and stay there till one of us comes to get you," Naruto ordered, to escort them, Naruto produced to clones and told them to protect Inari and Tsunami till they reached the destination.

"Thank you," Tsunami said as the clones ushered her out the door.

"We should hurry up and get to the bridge," Riku commented when Tsunami and the clones had left.

"Alright, lets go."

…

…

…

The mist slowly started to envelope the bridge, and all the ninja. Sasuke couldn't help but smile when Sakura realized what was happening, and shut up.

_Finally! Some action._

"Get into your positions!" Hana yelled out to the genin. The genin didn't have to be told twice, Sakura and Sai practically appeared next to Tazuna, while Sasuke almost shunshined into his position. He stood alittle bit in front of Sakura and Sai, the Uchiha looked behind over his should, and gave Sai a wink.

_There's the signal- _the pale boy thought. Sai dropped down to one knee, took out a drawing scroll, and started pumping out ink rats. He and Sasuke thought up the idea last night, if they couldn't see through the mist then the only way to find them would be to find them. They naturally wouldn't be able to go into the fog, and hope for a good outcome, so Sai proposed that he could use his ink rats to find them.

The rats scurried forward, and were looking for any sort of chakra signatures to be drawn to.

"I must give it to you, you all've got balls," a deep voice said from inside of the mist, "I thought you all would've run away like most Konoha-nin."

"Clearly you've underestimated us," Cat responded as he drew out a kunai.

"When you've been in this business as long as I have, you never under estimate anyone," Zabuza stated.

"Why don't you show yourself, and get this over with?" Cat asked, he was trying to buy time for the boys and he was aware of the plan.

"And spoil all of the fun? Nah, I like to see the little genin squirm before I end them."

*cough cough*

_Two coughs by Sai- _Sasuke, and Cat thought simultaneously.

Sasuke started to do the handsigns for a jutsu, while he waited for Sai to give him the directions.

Sai blinked his right eye three times, and coughed twice, .

_Eleven o'clock, far!_

Sasuke ran through the handsigns, and shouted: katon-grand fireball jutsu! The fireball erupted from his mouth, and barreled through the mist causing it to evaporate from the intense heat.

Zabuza felt something big coming towards he and Haku, and immediately knew something was up.

_How did they know where we were?- _Zabuza thought as he cut through the fireball with his huge sword.

His enhanced ninja senses warned him that something else was coming his way. The mist-nin jumped back from where he previously stood, just as several kunai and shuriken blanketed the area.

"SOB!" the mist-nin roared, "Haku, lets finish this."

All he got was a nod from the girl, before she disappeared into the mist. Zabuza then ran head long into the mist at a break neck speed.

Sasuke looked into the mist, nothing had happened for a couple minutes, he was actually hopeful that they had somehow injured them. Luck was not on his side however, as a flurry of ice javelins sped towards him.

"Crap!" Sasuke yelled as he dodge the ice blades, but they just kept coming. He dodged the first five, but the sixth one grazed his right calf, which cause his to grimace in pain. He kept the dance up however, and when the last one sped towards him, he shifted his legs, grabbed the ice spike, and flung it back in the direction that the others had come from.

Haku smirked behind her mask, as she saw the ice heading her way. She calmly held out her hand, and stopped the chakra flow that was going into the javelin. The ice melted in mid air just before it hit her.

"You'll have to do better than that," Haku said emotionlessly.

"I plan on it."

Katon: grand fireball jutsu!

A huge ball of flame erupted from Sasuke's mouth, a barreled towards Haku speedily.

Ice style (?) :ice wall!

A wall of ice burst from the ground, and held its ground as the ball of fire crashed into it. Haku decided it was time to take the offensive. She overloaded the chakra holding up the ice wall, which caused it to blowup sending chunks of ice in all sorts of directions.

Several of the pieces barreled towards Sasuke, but the Uchiha nimbly evaded all of them.

Haku wasn't finished however, she jumped into the air, into the mist, out of Sasuke's line of sight.

While she was still flying higher into the air, Haku ran through some more hand signs.

Ice stye: a thousand senbon jutsu!

A thousand senbon needles flanked her on both sides, and with a flick of her hand, she and the needles fell from the sky towards Sasuke.

Sasuke saw her fly up into the clouds, and immediately knew something was up. He didn't have to wait too long to find out.

Sasuke couldn't see the senbon needles because of the mist, but he could feel them speeding towards him.

The Uchiha brought his hands together, and shushined away, just as the area was blanketed in senbon. Sasuke only shushined roughly ten feet from where he previously stood.

As soon as Haku hit the ground, Sasuke was all over her. He sent a flurry of punches her way. Haku blocked some, and countered on the others. She was caught off guard though, when Sasuke feigned a leg sweep, and followed it up with a swift kick too Haku's midsection.

The ice user flew back from the kick, and slid a few feet on the ground. She picked herself up, and sped through some hand signs.

Demonic ice mirror jutsu!

An octagon of mirrors appeared around the Uchiha, and in each one stood Haku.

_Crap!_

"You might as well give up now," Haku said emotionlessly.

Sasuke's answer was a fireball to one of the mirrors that harmlessly hit one of the mirrors, and burned itself out. Sasuke's eyes widened with fear.

_That did nothing!_

"It is futile to resist," Haku said as she began raining senbon needles down at the Uchiha.

…

…

…

Hana and Cat were handling Zabuza, they stayed on there toes, and had caused him to use a lot of his chakra. Hana had summoned the Haimaru brothers, and was flashing thourgh some handsigns. She had already flipped a pill to each of the dogs, and when she finished Hana yelled out: Quadruple fang over fang.

Hana and the three dogs, span in a cyclone-drill sort of movement, and sped towards Zabuza.

The mist-nin, dodged the first two, kick Hana away, but was unable to get away from the last brother. The dog hit him head on, and cut several deep gashes in his chest.

He was launched away from the duo, but calmly lifted himself back up, and sped through some handsigns.

Suton: Kamikaze wave!

…

…

…

Naruto and Riku had caught up to Sakura, Sai, and Tazuna.

"Are you guys alright?" Riku asked as she ran up to check on them.

"Yah, we're fine," Sakura stated nervously, "but Sasuke-kun, Hana-senpai, and Cat- san are fighting the other ninja."

"I'll help Sasuke, you should go check on Hana and Cat," Naruto said as he drew out a kunai.

Riku nodded, and the duo took off in separate directions into the mist.

Naruto ran as fast as he could into the mist in search of his friend. As luck would have it, Naruto arrived just in time to see Sasuke take another senbon needle to the chest.

Sasuke grunted in pain as he fell to one knee. He spat out some blood, and defiantly glared at one of the mirrors.

"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled as he ran towards the mirrors.

"Naruto! Don't come in the mirrors!" Sasuke warned.

Naruto halted, and stated spinning his hands a forming a rasengan.

"Hang on Sasuke!" Naruto yelled as he plunged the rasengan into the nearest mirror.

The ball of chakra grounded its way through the mirror, and blasted it into a million little shards. Haku had to jump from the mirror, and into another one, but the damage was already done.

Sasuke watched as a blur jumped from the mirror. While the blur was in the air, the Uchiha noticed as it came more and more into focus. It got to a point where he saw her perfectly, it wasn't in slow motion per say, it was like real time.

Deciding to take action, Sasuke flashed through the first set of handsigns he had ever learned.

Katon: Fireball Jutsu!

He aimed it approximately where Haku was going to be.

His aim was spot on.

Haku was blown out of mid air, and smashed into the side of the bridge. She landed with a solid thud, and nearly passed out from the pain. The thing that she noticed, and kept her conscious, was the mist thinning out and evaporating right before her eyes.

_Zabuza-sama._

..

..

..

Naruto looked over at his friend with a surprised expression. He was about to ask, 'how did you do that' but stopped when he saw the state that Sasuke was in. Sasuke had fallen onto all fours, and was bleeding profusely. From the looks of both of his legs, they had been rendered immobile from the senbon. Naruto rushed over to help him.

By the time he got to Sasuke, it was too late. The Uchiha passed out in his own pile of blood.

"HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP!" Naruto cried out as he arrived at Sasuke's side. He was on the verge of tears, but was relieved to find that he still had a pulse all though it was weak. Sakura, Sai, Tazuna arrived a second later, and Sai started giving him first aid.

All of the sadness that had built up in Naruto's heart at the prospective death of his best friend, quickly turned to rage. He got up from next to Sasuke, and ran over to where Haku was sprawled out next to the side of the bridge. He grabbed her by the collar, and punched her straight in the face.

The mask that she wore was shattered, and fell away from Haku's face.

"H-Haku?" Naruto said as he continued to hold her up.

"I'm sorry Naruto, you and your friend defeated me. I'm no longer useful, please kill me," Haku said with tears streaming down her eyes.

"What? No!," Naruto said as he threw her roughly down to the ground.

He turned his back on her, and looked over across the bridge at Hana, Cat, Riku and Zabuza.

Even at the distance, Naruto could tell that Cat and Zabuza were seriously injured. Hana was pretty banged up, but was otherwise ok. Naruto wasn't sure if Cat was still alive, but he could tell that Zabuza was by the way Riku held her blade over his neck.

Naruto looked back down at Haku and was surprised to see her ready to plunge a spike of ice through here chest.

"Hey!" Naruto yelled as he wrestled the spike from her hand.

"Wtf is your problem!"

"I'm no longer useful."

"BS!" Naruto yelled as he picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder. He started walking over towards the others.

"Please kill me!" Haku pleaded as they neared the others. The last thing she wanted to see was Zabuza's disappointed face.

"No, I won't kill you unless I'm ordered to," Naruto snapped back, "Besides, why the hell would you want to die?"

"I failed Zabuza-sam," Haku said simply.

"I can understand why you would be sad, but that's no reason to kill yourself," Naruto concluded.

"It is a very good reason to kill myself," Haku retorted.

"I don't follow your logic," Naruto answered back.

Haku then told him the abbreviated version of her past, and how she now lived to serve Zabuza.

"That's still no reason to kill yourself, you can't defeat everybody, and if Zabuza wanted you to kill yourself after a simple failure, then he's a real bastard," Naruto said vehemently.

"Don't insult him," Haku snapped at him.

"Fine," Naruto said as he dumped on the ground next to Zabuza.

"How's Sasuke?" Hana asked Naruto after he put Haku on the ground.

"He'll be fine, how is Cat?" Naruto asked as he looked over at the ANBU.

"Cat didn't make it," Hana said quietly.

"Oh," Naruto said shocked. He never expected that the only one of them to be killed on the mission would be Cat.

"He died doing his duty," Hana concluded.

"What are we going to do about them?" Riku asked as she gestured towards Zabuza, and Haku.

"I don't know, but we-"

Hana never got to finish her sentence. An explosive kunai landed right in the middle of the group and detonated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Sorry for no new update, but i just wanted to tell y'all about my knew story "A Chance"**

**it is rated m, and it will be alot darker than this story **

**the main pairing will be NaruHina, and it will eventually contain a few lemons **

**just wanted to let y'all know about it, check it out and tell me what you think!**


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